


The Edge

by Commander_Freddy



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Human, Bittersweet, Childhood, M/M, Music
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:27:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 40,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Commander_Freddy/pseuds/Commander_Freddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vash Zwingli never had many friends as a child. Neither did Roderich Edelstein. As they grow up they find they may have more in common - and more dividing them - than a wrought iron fence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Violin Boy

Vash Zwingli was a very serious child. Whilst he was hardly the first little boy to play at being a soldier at the bottom of the garden, he was one of the remarkably few children who saw war as truly was, and loved it regardless. He would spend days outside, camping in his own shallow trenches and organising immaculately calculated raids against unseen, unnamed enemies. He held no faith in mass-produced toy guns and instead made his own from cardboard, balsa wood and any spare parts he could find in his neighbourhood. He would spend hours studying and designing weapons. From guns to tanks, if someone had used it in a war, Vash Zwingli had designed his own version of it.

This was, as you could imagine, a rather solitary set of hobbies for the quiet Swiss boy and as such, Vash lived through most of his childhood without any close friends. He knew many of the neighbourhood kids from school – the Vargras boys, the Beilschmidt brothers, tomboy Erzsébet Héderváry and Antonio’s ragtag gang – but none of them were particularly close to him. As his baby sister Lilli grew up, the two formed a tight bond, but their 7 year age gap was sometimes too far to breach. Vash didn’t mind spending most of his time alone, but the other kids did. They often went out of their way to avoid him and as they grew, so did their suspicion of him. The fact that he lived on The Edge probably didn’t help.

Vash’s neighborhood was one renowned for its more prestigious residents, the remnants of old noble families and miscellaneous people of wealth that lived in the beautiful manor houses that occasionally popped up through the sparse suburbia that was the neighborhood. Contrary to popular belief, there were far more average, middleclass families than local VIPs and whilst every house in the area was blessed with ample garden space and typically large floor plans, the children of the truly rich were often looked upon with suspicion by the other youngsters in the area. This was not helped by the rich children themselves, who rarely mixed with the others – some even taught at home by tutors and not even attending school. They kept to their manor houses, those great mansions far away, and yet not far enough, from the world of the regular children. The only exception was Erzsébet Héderváry (Elli to everyone at school who couldn’t pronounce her full name), who had been encouraged by her parents to go out and spend her time with the local kids. To the children of the area, there were two types of housing – regular houses and manor houses. But in truth there was a third: an area between middle- and upper-classes. The Edge.

The Zwinglis were a normal family of the area – two children and two working parents. Their house and grounds were spacious and old, yet nowhere near the grandeur of the old manor house they lived next door to. Their house had once belonged to the estate of Edelstein Manor, a guesthouse for visitors to the noble family that had lived there for centuries. They lived on The Edge, in a house too great to be normal, yet too normal to be great. Vash didn’t see this as the problem the other kids did, he was merely grateful for the vast expanses of garden in which he could stage wars, and the lovely old house that contained endless hiding spots.

The Edelsteins still lived in the manor next door, although their influence and way of life greatly differed to their predecessors. Vash had never seen them, unless you count flashes of movement behind frosted glass and the occasional sound of a car driving slowly along their gravel driveway. To him they were like ghosts, legends, stories that existed for the sole purpose of explaining the occasional signs of life in the old manor. He had never seen them as people, and had certainly never considered talking to one of them. He didn’t even know how many Edelsteins lived next to him, or who they were. For all he knew, there could be fifty bearded linguists with the Black Plague living in the manor beyond the wrought iron fence that sidled his garden, and he definitely didn’t care to find out for certain. That is, he didn’t care until the day he first met Violin Boy.

Vash was eight years, four months and 12 days old the day he first heard the melodies of Violin Boy, and had spent the past two nights camping in a ditch at the bottom of his garden. He was silently sniping at an invisible truck of supplies headed for the equally invisible enemy camp when a sweet and simple violin melody broke through his reverie and threw his sniper’s focus out of the proverbial window. He had never been interrupted by music before. His parents rarely listened to anything, unless it was carols at Christmastime on their ancient record player and their house was secluded enough to never be bothered by neighbours. As such, he had no idea how to react, so he simply decided to get mad.

Shocked and ludicrously offended by this sudden appearance of music, Vash went in search of the melody’s source. It was clearly coming from the direction of Edelstein Manor, and so Vash followed his crude trench to the western end of his family’s spacious garden until he reached its very boundary – an intricately wrought iron fence with each slender pole crowned by petite fleur-de-lis design. He traipsed along the fence for the duration of the simple melody, searching for, yet failing to find, where it came from. The flower bushes the Edelsteins had planted on their side of the fence hindered his search greatly, yet did nothing to muffle the soft, childish melody that wafted over to the Zwingli side of the fence. As the last note faded into the air, Vash stood silently by the fence and listened, waiting for another note, more music, applause even. There was nothing. And then, ever so softly, the sound of someone bending down. Vash hadn’t even been aware that you did make a noise when bending down, yet there it was. He moved further along the fence to a gap between two bushes on the Edelstein side. As he moved, he could hear other things – someone’s breathing, soft noises Vash couldn’t identify and then the sound of expensive shoes on stone. He reached the gap in the bushes and was allowed a truly clear view into the grounds of Edelstein Manor for the first time.

He was closer to the actual manor house than he had expected, although it was only one of the single-story, simpler wings of the massive dwelling that stood metres away from him. Between the manor and the Zwingli, however, was a courtyard. And just leaving this courtyard was a boy carrying a violin case. He seemed to be of around Vash’s age, if slightly taller, and had dark brown hair atop his well-dressed, black -clad, lanky figure. It was hard to tell from the back, but Vash suspected he might be wearing glasses. The Violin Boy nodded to something ahead of him, just to his right and Vash realised with a slight start that someone had been standing inside the manor, watching Violin Boy play through the bay windows. Vash saw only a shadowed figure, yet despite the boy’s pleasant performance on the violin, the figure did not seem pleased. Just before he reached the door, Violin Boy turned back to the courtyard as if he had sensed Vash’s presence. Young mister Zwingli dove behind one of the flower bushes the instant he did so, yet still managed to catch some vague details of the front of Violin Boy that had been impossible to discern from behind.

The front of his vest was a beautiful shimmering indigo.

He _was_ wearing glasses.

And he had a mouth that looked as if it never smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to try to define a proper setting for this fic. It's a jumble of most of the western world but I think with a touch more Europe than elsewhere. It is set in the present day, though, so there's that.  
> The next chapter will be more in depth, to be honest, this one was really just a plotbunny I had to release. And also my first Edelweiss fic.


	2. What Do You Know...?

“What do you know about the Edelsteins?”  
It was the question of the month, and it wasn’t long before Vash had lost count of how many times he had asked it. He asked everyone who would listen, regardless of if there was any chance they actually knew anything. Everyone was posed the question, from Francis Bonnefoy who sat next to him in school to snooty aristocrat Arthur Kirkland whom he had seen at the park on a Thursday afternoon. Nobody really knew anything besides the obvious: they were an old aristocratic family that lived in the manor at the end of Vash’s street. As it turned out, they didn’t talk to anyone in the community. Or so it seemed until Vash had the chance to ask one Miss Erzsébet Héderváry.

It had taken a long time for Vash to ask her as Miss Héderváry was most often preoccupied with her many and varying interests, almost all of which were fighting people. She was a nice kid, Elli, really. She just made enemies very quickly. In fact, she was one of the few people which Vash felt at ease around because more often than not, she was covered in more mud than he was. He had found her behind one of the school’s toilet blocks throwing snowballs at Gilbert Beilschmidt and the creepy Romanian kid Vash had never gotten to know. He waited patiently until she got bored and let the poor boys escape and then practically launched the question at her.

“What do you know about the Edelsteins?” She barely even blinked as he leapt from the shadows shouting this, which he had to give her credit for.

“The Edelsteins? Quite a lot, actually. My parents are friends of theirs.” After hearing negative answers for so long, the potential for actual information sounded positively alien to Vash. 

“Oh. Uh, good.” Now that he had a chance to learn about Violin Boy and his family, Vash was actually at a loss as to what he should ask about. “Can you tell me… uh, about them?”

There was a rumour going around school that Erzsébet Héderváry could smell fear, and the look she gave him after his last question solidified this as fact in his mind. “The Edelsteins are a pretty small family. It’s just Mr. and Mrs. Edelstein and their son. They have that whole manor to themselves.”

“Their son!” Vash exclaimed before he could think. “Does he happen to play the violin?”

Erzsébet thought for a second. “The last time we met up he did say his parents were going to make him start taking violin lessons again, yeah. He took them when he was younger, like five or so, but stopped because he didn’t like it. But the last time we spoke was probably a few weeks ago, so he’d definitely have started playing again by now, if he ever was going to. Why do you ask?”

Vash mentally groped for an answer that didn’t make him sound like a stalker for a moment, but as the seconds ticked by and Erzsébet’s eyebrow rose higher and higher, he decided to simply tell the truth. 

“I overheard him playing about a month ago. Actually, I overhear him playing every day. He’s always out in the courtyard practicing the same song over and over.” She smiled at him. “It’s getting extremely annoying,” he added hastily, but that only served to widen her smile.

“If it annoys you so much, why don’t you just ask him to practice elsewhere?” She was practically grinning by now. 

He scowled and ignored her suggestion. “You said he used to play violin when he was five. How old is he now?”

“Our age,” she smiled. “Or about so. I think he’s maybe seven months older than me.” 

“Right,” said Vash awkwardly. “Well, thanks Ershe-… Airze-… Erzee-” He stopped mispronouncing her name when a snowball came crashing into the side of his head.

“You can just call me Elli, Vash.”

****

Violin Boy was already playing when Vash got home from school that day. He could hear the notes just barely from the front of the house and wasted no time in running out the back door.

“Vash!” called his father from inside. “If you’re going to play outside, can you take Lilli, too? I have bills to pay and the poor kid needs constant attention.” As if to reinforce his point, Lilli gurgled and chirped in his arms. Vash was about to protest by saying he wasn’t going outside to play he was going to… sit in the bushes and listen to their neighbour play violin?

“I’ll take Lilli,” he said quietly and slipped through the door once more to collect his sister.

Lilli’s loud giggling and happy noises forced Vash to stay away from the fence for fear of being discovered by Violin Boy. He wasn’t sure why he was so worried about Violin Boy – or anyone really – finding out that he listened to his outdoor performances every day. It wasn’t that creepy, really. If he was going to play violin outside, he should expect at least someone to hear it. Besides, they were neighbours. It was weird that they didn’t talk. Taking a look at his little sister shaking her ragdoll around, Vash made up his mind.

“Stay right here,” he told her. “I’m just going over to the fence for a bit.” He had no idea if she could understand him, but it didn’t matter. The fence was only a few metres away.  
He approached it slowly, Violin Boy’s music growing louder with each and every step. The fence seemed to approach him, rather than the other way around, and soon it was upon him, fleur-de-lis toppings towering above him. He shuffled slowly into the gap between the bushes and allowed himself a peek into the courtyard beyond. Stop worrying! he chastised himself. He’s just a kid – what’s he going to do? His throat closed shut in an instant as he looked into the grounds of Edelstein Manor and found Violin Boy only a few centimetres form the fence. Vash froze in fear and could do nothing but stare as Violin Boy continued with the melody. 

For some reason, Vash had been expecting Violin Boy to play with his eyes closed, but this was far from the truth. The young Edelstein seemed to glare down the fingerboard, watching his delicate fingers dance from string to string. Subconsciously, Vash leant forward, eager for a better view of the odd boy playing a violin so close to him. And then Violin Boy hesitated, only infinitesimally, for less than a second. But Vash noticed. He also noticed that Violin Boy’s gaze had shifted from the fingerboard. In that one instant, Violin Boy had look at him. And weirdest of all, he didn’t seem to mind being spied upon.  
Vash turned and bolted from the fence, his face a mortified shade of rhubarb. Lilli was sitting exactly where he had left her, now patting her doll’s hair. 

“Hey come on Lilli, let’s go inside,” he gabbled. She didn’t even seem to notice as he picked her up and raced back to the house. But he did notice something. Behind his panting and the sound of his boots splattering through mud, there was no violin melody. His neighbour had stopped playing.

****  
It was late, very late, and Vash couldn’t sleep. He had given up trying hours ago because no matter what he thought of, what he did or even if he read, his thoughts kept coming back to Violin Boy. One thought in particular was the matter of the Edelstein’s eyes. In the single instant that they had been visible to him, they seemed almost indigo. But that was ridiculous. No-one’s eyes were indigo, they were just dark blue, no matter how pretty they seemed. Did he just call Violin Boy’s eyes pretty? 

It was so odd, he thought, to have someone constantly in his mind like this. It had never happened before and Vash and decided it was a thoroughly unpleasant feeling, not to mention inconvenient. He couldn’t do anything – all he wanted to do was listen to Violin Boy. Maybe even talk to him, get to know him, or look at those ridiculous indi- dark blue eyes.

On an impulse, Vash slid from bed moved to the window that faced his backyard and peeped out from behind the curtains. The fence that separated his land from the grounds of Edelstein Manor was very close to the Zwingli’s house and from his room, Vash could see over the bushes planted along it on the Edelstein side. The courtyard where Violin Boy played was easily visible from his position but it was, of course, empty. Vash watched it for a few moments, as if expecting Violin Boy to somehow materialise there and begin playing in the middle of the night.

Obviously, he didn’t, and Vash eventually turned away from the window, disappointed and rather annoyed with himself for expecting anything. He climbed back into bed and deliberately tried to focus on something else.

_I wonder why Elli was throwing snowballs at Gilbert and the Romanian kid. They were probably touching her stuff again, or encroaching on her “territory”. Why is so protective of that one bench, anyway? She seemed real angry with them, so they must have done something bad. They could have just apologized to her and then I would have gotten to talk to her sooner._

_I should have asked her Violin Boy’s name._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was shorter than I thought it would be but oh well, I'm happy with it. I've actually already written the final chapter, but I still have no idea how many will precede it.
> 
> And this chapter heralds the start of a friendship that has been a headcanon of mine for a while. :3


	3. "Hello"

Vash was always a boy with incredible self-control and dignity. Indeed, it seemed almost ridiculous how far out of his way he would go to avoid making a fool of himself and it could be argued as rather unhealthy. It was only with this enthusiastic perfectionism that he was able to survive to the age of eleven. He decided that it would be in his best interests to not pay even the slightest attention to Violin Boy for the rest of his life. Of course, this would not work out, but he managed to do it for around three years and he was certain that if he could bring himself to tell any adult about it they would be very impressed and give him a sticker or something for being so grown-up and mature. But it was getting harder and harder every day.

He had often heard his rather romantic father remark that “absence makes the heart grow fonder” every time his mother had to go on a business trip and was now starting to feel the truth of that statement. He was in no way fond of Violin Boy, of course, that would just be ridiculous, but he had always found him fascinating. A kid his own age playing a violin in a courtyard? Vaguely interesting. A kid he had never know existed playing a violin beautifully in a courtyard right next door with no other information to be found? Absolutely amazing. Physically avoiding Violin Boy was easy, not thinking about him was nigh impossible. Every day the sound of violin playing would wander over the fence from Edelstein Manor and somehow find its way to Vash, no matter where he was, and every day Vash would hear the music improving until it was impossible not to think of what incredible person could make music this perfect.

If Vash knew anything about music or even listened to professionally-produced classical music occasionally, he would know that Violin Boy’s music was anything but perfect. But he didn’t, so it was. The desire to see Violin Boy grew every day, but the reality of the boy himself diminished every time Vash heard the music without seeing its source, so it wasn’t long before Violin Boy seemed to be nothing more than a half-forgotten dream of a younger, more impressionable Vash. The legend of Violin Boy grew in Vash’s mind until he was certain that he couldn’t be real and the music came from some innocuous source like the Edelstein’s radio. But one Thursday, after school, an eleven-year-old Vash was walking out the school gates when he passed Erzsébet Héderváry talking on her mobile. He barely noticed her until a snippet of conversation tickled his ear and his whole being froze.

“Yes, Mrs Edelstein, I’ll be there for lunch on Sunday.”

Suddenly, and rather overwhelmingly, his conversation with an eight-year-old Elli behind a toilet block raced back to him. Violin Boy was real and he always had been. The bus ride home was simultaneously eternal and instantaneous to Vash because he was riding it was a one-track mind. That afternoon, he was going to watch Violin Boy for the first time in three years, and it had been far too long.

He was in one end of the house and out the other before he even realised he was off the bus and it took him another minute to realise that there was no violin music anywhere in the air. He stood there, in the middle of his backyard surrounded by toy guns and beside a weak ditch dug by his six-year-old self, awkwardly for what seemed to be a time much longer than it actually was, waiting for the inevitable violin music. It didn’t come. Sullenly, he picked up a gun and began half-heartedly shooting at invisible enemies. It wasn’t anywhere near as much fun as it used to be. Slowly, it dawned on him that he hadn’t played with these in a while, or at least not as intensively as he used to. There was still no violin music.

Vash was now rather discouraged, but not enough to give up, just enough to become very angry and slightly terrified. He began pacing around his the yard, suddenly realising how small it was. That was probably due to the new back porch than anything else, however. He concentrated primarily on fuming on his sudden change of attitude in order to avoid worrying about Violin Boy. Nevertheless, rather worrying thoughts started trickling into his mind. He knew for a fact that Violin Boy practiced every single day and on weekdays he almost always played in the afternoon, usually just after Vash arrived home from school. But that was all he knew and for the first time in three years, Vash once again regretted not getting more information from Elli that day behind the toilet block. He tried not to think of what might have happened to Violin Boy by focusing on the fact that Elli was coming to the Edelsteins’ for lunch on Sunday so clearly everything was fine but then more horrible ideas began surfacing.

_What if Violin Boy is dying of some horrible disease and she’s coming over to say goodbye? What if he’s already died and they’re having a funeral and-_

Vash cut himself off by bashing his head against the wrought-iron fence and then firmly banishing all thoughts of death from his mind by thinking about the fence. Even this thing isn’t as big as it used to be he thought sullenly. For a blatant distraction, it was a rather astute observation. The metal fleur-de-lis that had once towered above him now sprouted from the top of his head. Strangely, this did nothing to diminish the fence’s dividing powers in Vash’s mind. Absently, he reached up and poked the top of one of the fleur-de-lis, finding it surprisingly sharp. Without even noticing he was doing it, Vash began to shuffle along the fence in the direction of Violin Boy’s courtyard, his finger absently tapping each fleur-de-lis he passed.

The courtyard was empty when he arrived, of course, and he had expected nothing more. All the same, the newly formed knot of negativity in his heart expanded so suddenly and horribly, he felt it jam his throat closed. He wasn’t exactly why he cared so much, he hadn’t thought of this boy in a remotely serious way in three years, or why he was so quick to jump to drastic assumptions but the fact remains that when the door to the courtyard opened and Violin Boy stepped out Vash was more relieved than he had ever been in his entire life.

The young Mr Edelstein’s eyes were fixed firmly on the ground as he stepped out, his violin case swinging limply from his left hand, he right gently closing the heavy door behind him. Vash stood, enchanted, as his neighbour moved to a metal table that certainly hadn’t been there three years ago and placed the violin case on it, keeping his head down all the while. He had grown, naturally, and he seemed somehow even lankier and skinnier than he had been when he was eight. The glasses were still perched on his noble nose, his brown hair was neatly groomed and combed to with an inch of its life, but at this close distance Vash could see that a single strand poked up from his hairline. So engrossed with watching this strange and rather pretty boy (no he is not pretty, stop thinking that) was Vash that he didn’t even notice that his neighbour was turning around.

And then those ridiculous, impossible, undeniably indigo eyes were fixed on Vash Zwingli and the whole world seemed to fall down around him. Naturally, he didn’t mind at all.

The two neighbours stood, almost perfectly still for an extremely laden moment or three, almost daring each other to look away whilst begging them to stay. Violin Boy was the first to move, shifting his feet awkwardly, but still keeping eye contact.

“Hello.” The word sounded almost alien to Vash. “My name’s Roderich.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It seems it's been a bit of a while since I last updated and I have to admit that was a combination of writers' block and laziness on my part. At least Vash finally knows Roderich's name now.
> 
>  
> 
> And cliffhanger, ooh!


	4. Vash Zwingli - Horrific Conversationalist

Roderich Edelstein had an accent. Vash had no idea where it came from and, indeed, it sounded less like an accent from a place and more like an accent from a lifestyle. Accompanying it was a serious, yet friendly face with an air of impeccable dignity. Roderich was eleven, according to Erzsébet Héderváry, or possibly twelve, and yet he spoke and carried himself with an authority and confidence that rendered Vash even more awkward and squirrely. In an instant, Vash Zwingli had forgotten his name, his voice, his personality and how to say hello, leaving him only with a stupid comment.

 

“You’re real?”

 

Roderich’s small smile started to slip off his face, a rather confused furrowing of the brows taking its place.

“Yes? Well, I was the last time I checked.”

 

Mentally smacking his head against the fence, Vash immediately tried to remedy one of the worst first impressions in the history of neighbourliness.

“Of course you’re real. I just sort of… forgot.” By the look on Roderich’s face, this remedying was not going well.

 

“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” asked Mr Edelstein before his neighbour could dig himself even deeper.

 

The memory of that one day, three years ago, when Violin Boy’s eyes had shifted from the fingerboard of his violin for just a second and watched Vash filled the Zwingli’s mind.

“Well, I presume you have, what with me being your neighbour and all. I’m in the yard, this yard, often enough that I’d expect you would have seen me once or twice, maybe playing with my guns or-”

 

“It was a pretty long time ago,” said Roderich dreamily, carelessly cutting across Vash’s speech. He turned and met Vash’s eyes, watching him carefully before he continued. “You were watching me first.”

 

Vash was instantly indignant. What was this kid implying? Was it odd to be curious about random violin music coming from the neighbours’ house? Of course not! He had every right to investigate… didn’t he? But none of this came out of his mouth. Oh no, instead, Vash Zwingli spouted

“It’s not my fault you’re such a good violin player!”

 

And he was back to mentally bashing his head against the fence. But Roderich had a different opinion of Vash’s statement. Stepping closer to the fence, and therefore Vash, his sweet, princely smile growing ever larger, Roderich asked

“You think I can play well?”

 

“Well of course I do!” The sentence came out much shakier than he intended, although he didn’t know why. “You _are_ good at playing the violin.” It was merely a factual observation, nothing warranting shakiness. “And I like listening to you.” There was no shame in that, he just liked music. “E-everyone would like listening to you.” And with a full-blown stutter at the beginning of his sentence, Vash turned bright red. But Roderich was looking happier, his smile far less noble now. In fact, Vash could see a space in his neighbour’s mouth where a young incisor had fallen out.

 

But the smile was slipping away now.

 

“I’m glad you think so,” said Roderich. “But that’s not the case.” And in complete silence he turned, took his violin from its case and began to play.

 

Vash stood there awkwardly as Roderich’s fantastic music began to fill the air, not knowing what to do. He didn’t want to leave him, not after their conversation had ended on such a sad and rather ambiguous note, but he could hardly start speaking again whilst Roderich was playing. As he mulled over what to do, he watched his neighbour’s fingers gently change the pitch of each note and his other hand deftly control the bow, the rhythm of the movements gently soothing him into a thoughtful trance. 

 

Roderich had called three years “a pretty long time”, but it wasn’t. It was only a short time in the true scope of things. Vash was convinced if only given that amount of time, he would have no hope of becoming a violin player at Roderich’s level, even if he was given the experience Mr Edelstein had gained as a young child, according to Elli. His neighbour had a gift, of that he was sure. As to why the other had difficulty acknowledging this, he had no idea. And, if he was very honest with himself, he was rather afraid to find out why.

 

Standing very still and leaning against the fence that separated them, Vash Zwingli watched Roderich Edelstein pour his heart into a small wooden tool and turn it into heart-wrenching music. It was almost magical what he was doing. Unconsciously, Vash leaned closer and wrapped his hands around the fence poles closest to him, anchoring his body down as his mind floated away with the music. Violin Boy and his greatest, and only, fan flew away on the backs of musical notes, both their minds travelling far away, but always thinking of the other.

 

Only when the music stopped did Vash realise he had slipped into a sort of stupor, his face smushed against the poles of the fence and his eyes half-closed and unfocused. Roderich replaced his violin in its hollow in the velvet-lined case and, lifting it from the table, turned to Vash.

 

The smile had returned, if only slightly.

 

“See you around, neighbour,” he said softly and without waiting for a reply, returned to his house. In his wake stood an extremely confused Vash Zwingli, his face and his heart pressed against a wrought-iron fence.

 

****

               

Vash was always perfectly happy having no true friends for the duration of his childhood, but now it was becoming a serious logistical problem. Young Mr Zwingli had encountered a roadblock on what was shaping up to be a very interesting leg of the road of his life. He had no one to talk to about Roderich.

 

His first thought had been Erzsébet Héderváry, but he had chickened out mere metres of from her. It was all very awkward, considering she had seen him walk up to her, take a breath to start talking and then take a sharp right turn just in front of her and walk until he encountered a wall. She had smiled at him earnestly through class the entire day and, consequentially, painted him a wonderful shade of vermillion for 24 hours.

 

A potentially less embarrassing example presented itself a day later when Francis, the boy who sat next to him in class, started rabbiting on about how pretty Chelle, a girl from the year below us, is. Because, of course, he finished his dreamy rant with

“Who do you reckon is the prettiest girl in the school is, Vash?”

 

And once the word ‘prettiest’ was spoken, all Vash could think of was how Roderich’s eyes defied all description other than ‘pretty’. Francis was rather startled when his desk-neighbour’s head came crashing down on his spelling notebook and emitted a mortified groan.

 

Startled, but not unsympathetic.

 

“Vash! Are you alright?” asked Francis in his almost musical voice. Music. It seemed to be haunting Vash.

 

“I’m okay,” replied the Zwingli, sitting up normally once more. “I was just – uh – thinking of someone.”

 

“Oh wow,” said Francis, grinning. “You must really like them, then. Either that or you want to kill them but either way, you have some serious talking to do!” When Vash stayed quiet but red, Francis leaned in closer and said quietly

“So who is it?”

 

Out of sheer instinct and embarrassment from the day before, Vash’s gaze immediately flickered toward Elli, sitting opposite him across the classroom. Unfortunately, Francis did not miss this quick gaze.

 

“Elli?” he grinned. “You like _her_?” Vash was horrified. “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with her, I just go for the girls that look more, well, girls that look like girls. Of course that doesn’t mean-”

 

“Shut up!” hissed Vash. “I do _not_ like Elli! I just-”

 

“Please keep the noise down, back there,” said Mr Honda from the front of the room, his rather quiet voice cutting through the chattering class like one of the katanas he had on display at the back of the room that Gilbert Beilschmidt kept trying to steal. Vash and Francis nodded at their teacher, before leaning down to talk beneath his notice.

 

“I don’t like Elli at _all_ ” Vash confirmed, harshly but whispered. “She just knows the person I thought of, that’s all.”

 

“The person you _like_ , you mean,” said Francis, one of his knowing smiles worming its way across his face.

 

“I do not _like_ … this person, I just thought- And why do you care, they don’t go to this school!”

 

“So this pretty person,” he continued, ignoring Vash’s angry spluttering, “who you _do not like at all_ , must be an aristocrat if they know Elli, but don’t go to school, right?”

 

Vash nodded reluctantly.

 

Francis giggled. “Good job, my little Romeo-”

 

“ _I don’t like-_ ”

 

“You managed to fall for one of the kids that never going to marry you.”

 

“I don’t want to _marry_ …” Vash falters. “And how do you know they wouldn’t want to marry me? I’m not that terrible of a person!” He floundered for a second. “I have nice hair.”

 

“That you do,” smiled Francis, “but it’s not like the aristocrat kids get a say in who they marry.”

 

“Hey genius, wake up and smell the 21st century,” said Vash, perhaps a bit more venomously than he intended. “Like anyone’s going to take an arranged marriage seriously nowadays.”

 

“Yeah, so it’s not like it was back once upon a time, but they still have to marry other people of their ‘standing’,” said Francis.

 

Vash sighed. “I don’t even care,” he muttered. “Like I would even want to marry him.”

 

A quick and eager grin appeared on Francis’s face before Vash had even realised he had spoken. “So it’s a _him_ , then, huh, Vash?” The Zwingli’s eyes widened to an almost comical size out of horror and instantly began mentally kicking himself.

 

“You boys back there,” came Mr Honda’s voice again. Vash and Francis’s heads instantly popped up from behind the desks. “I know you’re talking again.” Vash felt his pulse quicken. For a tiny Japanese man, Mr Honda could be particularly terrifying. “You will both stay in at lunch,” - both Vash and Francis sighed dramatically - “and there will be no talking then, either!”

 

Vash settled back into his chair and exhaled heavily. Beside him, Francis scribbled on a scrap of paper that was then flicked into Vash’s scraggly blonde hair. Opening it, Vash found, written in Francis’s spectacularly curly and hard to read script,

 

_We are so finishing this conversation after school._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I am very sorry this took so long to post, I don't even have an excuse. I'm just lazy. But I hope you enjoyed it and I promise I'll have the next chapter up soon.


	5. Tongue-Tied

Vash fidgeted with his school shirt as he waited for Francis behind one of the school’s toilet blocks. Why he kept talking about Roderich with people he didn’t necessarily like behind lavatories he had no idea, but he appreciated the implication that the whole situation was so shitty it didn’t even warrant a normal meeting place. Anyway, behind toilet blocks were sort of universally understood to be reserved for private conversations amongst the student body. He had no idea why anyone would meet here, though. It stank. Then again, maybe that was the reason.

He continued thinking pointless thoughts of toilets and glancing angrily at his watch until Francis snuck up behind him.

“Boo!” giggled Francis, grabbing Vash’s shoulders. To his chagrin, Vash found himself jolt with surprise. “Gotcha,” winked Francis.

“Very funny,” said Vash dryly, picking his classmate’s hands off his shoulders. “Now what on Earth do you want to talk about? I’m certainly not going to tell you any more about the person we – well, you – were discussing in class.”

“Ah, but Vash, you have intrigued me!” said Francis as he danced from behind Vash into his eye line. “I must know more! It sounds so tragic; you, poor boy, have fallen in love with a magnificent aristocrat with whom you have no chance of love with!”

“Okay are you calling me poor in terms of money or pity because either way I want to punch you.”

“Oh, come on.” Francis was a little less enthusiastic now. “Please tell me some more! Just tell me about this boy, just a little information. Not much.”

Vash sighed and rubbed his hand across his forehead. “That’s part of the problem, I barely know anything about this kid.”

“Problem?” asked Francis, trying and failing to stop a grin from spreading across his face.

“Not some sappy daytime-soap-opera problem, Francis!”

“Right, right, sorry. Please, tell me what is wrong.”

Vash sighed once more and leant down to sit against the brick wall of the toilet block. “Okay, so I first discovered this kid existed like three years ago. I was outside, pretending I was in a war or something and then this violin music started playing. It was really weird because no one in my family plays the violin or ever plays music on the radio or anything. Anyway, I found the source of the music. It was this kid, playing the violin outside, in next-door’s courtyard.”

“Roderich Edelstein!” Francis yelled instantly.

“How the fuck did you figure that out?!” Vash shouted back, returning to his feet. “Also shut up.”

“You seem to have forgotten that I have intimate knowledge of all the aristocrats of the surrounding area,” said Francis, a rather boastful smile plastered across his mouth.

“By intimate knowledge of aristocrats, do you mean stalking Arthur Kirkland?” Vash retaliated immediately.

“Hey!” Francis exhaled rather sulkily. “What I mean, is that I know of Roderich Edelstein and Edelstein Manor. More importantly, I know that they are both right next to your house, so take that!”

“Alright, fine, so I was talking about Roderich Edelstein. But all that other stuff I said still stands as well! I don’t _like_ him, I just thought of him when you mentioned pretty girls!”

Francis smile again. “So in your mind, Roderich is a pretty girl?” Vash just stared at him. “Look, you mentioned a problem, and I actually want to help you! So could you please tell me what is wrong?”

Vash’s shoulders drooped and he leant against the wall of the toilet block. “The problem is that… I don’t really know Roderich and I would like to know him and I’m not even sure how I feel about him and I can never really talk to him because we hardly ever see each other and when we do I can’t even form a sentence and he thinks he can’t play the violin but he makes the most amazing music you have ever heard and he has these really weird but nice eyes and he has a great smile but I just say weird things so he just sort of frowns at me a lot but he also looks really sad in the eyes and I don’t even know if that’s even a thing but he’s so _regal_ in everything he does and-” Vash paused to take a massive breath “-I don’t even really know what the problem is. I just feel… bad?”

Francis was watching him, confused, bemused and eyebrow quirked. “It sounds like you _do_ like him.”

“Hey! I told you-”

“I know what you said I’m just saying what it sounds like!” Francis threw his hands in the air, terrified of the short, blonde package of anger that stood before him.

“Okay, okay,” said Vash, visibly trying to calm himself down. “So, just out of curiosity, if I did happen to – _like_ – Roderich Edelstein, what would you suggest I do?”

“Well, you said you didn’t actually know that much about him, so I’d suggest you talk to him,” said Francis, smiling.

“Didn’t you hear what I said earlier? In that avalanche of words? Every time I try to talk to him I just end up saying weird gibberish!”

“Maybe you wouldn’t be so scared of talking to him if you got to know him better,” said Francis.

“And to get to know him, I have to talk to him,” said Vash quietly. “This sucks.

****

Vash stayed in his room that afternoon, with the pretext of working on some of his artillery designs. His notebook sat on his desk, a half-hearted sketch of a rather fantastical-looking tank open on the page facing Vash. The desk was on one side of the window that looked out over the back garden, the bed was on the other. From where he sat, Vash could see over the wrought-iron fence into the Edelstein’s courtyard – the very same one where Roderich played, and the same one he had ignored for eight years, until the day he found a violinist playing there. Young Mr Edelstein was not there at the moment; he had been playing earlier and had finished shortly after Vash had arrived home. A small, irrational part of Vash’s mind worried that he was being avoided, but the rest of it quickly protested that he didn’t care. This, argumentative part of his mind was slowly becoming weaker, however. Vash wasn’t sure how he felt about this.

He kept his eyes on the courtyard, but thought instead of Francis and his advice. Although Vash had scampered off almost immediately, he had to admit that Francis had been very helpful. He almost felt bad about insinuating that Francis was a stalker. Almost. Arthur Kirkland’s name was scribbled on the inside of all of his notebooks, how could he not make a jab at that? But his advice, now that was something to ponder on. He did was to get to know Roderich better, truly he did, but he had no idea how he could go about doing so when he could barely _see_ straight whenever he spoke to him?

 _Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could talk to him without talking?_ Vash thought. He immediately turned to his battered old laptop, a hand-me-down from his mother, and thought of getting Roderich’s Facebook or something. But that would require more talking. Besides, Roderich didn’t seem like a very Facebook-ish person. Vash’s eyes then slid to his notebook.

_Of course. What an idiot._

How had he not thought of this before? He quickly tore out a page of the notebook and began to scrawl all over it. He filled it surprisingly quickly and so tore out another page. He was quite enjoying this.

He couldn’t begin to comprehend why he hadn’t written a letter before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsk, task, Vash. You're not supposed to have a facebook until you're 13! But goodness knows he's so much more mature than most of the kids on there. Well, mature in some ways. :3
> 
> Also I enjoy thinking of Francis as a little shit as a kid.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this one and couldn't notice I wrote it all in a single sitting (I'm lazy, so sue me).


	6. A Most Important Dispatch

It was dark, but not really. The sun was rising, but thanks to the huge bank of clouds covering the eastern sky, it wasn’t doing much. Vash was thankful for the darkness as it meant no one could see what he was doing. Unless they had a torch. Or even the lights on inside. Once again struck by both his own skittishness and the ridiculousness of the plan, Vash felt himself blush. _Perhaps it would be best if I just ripped up the letter and pretend I never thought what was in it_ , he thought, but the traitorous idea didn’t last long. Vash wanted to be friends with Violin B- _Roderich_ and he wasn’t going to let something stupid like his own bashfulness stop him. A letter had seemed like such a wonderful idea at the time. Now it just felt like silly kid stuff.

He looked down at the envelope in his hands once more. It was actually rather thick, and Vash was still reeling from how much he had had to say. He hadn’t been able to think of it all at once, of course; what he held was a record of several sessions of thinking; one of which occurred at around three am when he started wondering what baby pigeons look like. He was still convinced 90% of the contents was silly, whilst the other 10% was just plain incomprehensible but nevertheless, he wanted Roderich to read it.

He was standing once more at the fence in front of Roderich’s practice courtyard, searching for a suitable place to leave the letter. This was harder than it sounds as Vash was a very particular child. It couldn’t be too far into the open as a bird might take it for a nest (although what kind of bird nests in autumn he had no idea) or worse still, someone else might find it and read it. On the other hand, it couldn’t be hidden too well as Roderich had no idea it would be there at all and wouldn’t exactly be looking for it. A number of options presented themselves to Vash. One was to leave it just out on the open cobblestones, another to hide it some of the surrounding bushes. And there was always the option of sticking it between the wrought-iron fence posts, but Vash didn’t quite trust the wind to leave it there untouched all day.

“Vash do you want some eggs!?” Vash felt his spine practically shoot straight out of his body when his father called from the house.

“Uh, no thanks!” he called back, his composure not quite regained.

“Ok!”

Vash breathed a deep sigh of relief as his father closed the back door and returned to the kitchen.

Now, where to put the letter? Behind those purple flowers? No, they were too tall, Roderich would never find it. What about-

“Hey what are you doing out there anyway?” This time his father called out, Vash even let out a (quickly quashed) squeal.

“N-not much?” he replied, shaking.

“Well come inside and say goodbye to your mother, then!”

“Yeah, alright! Just a-” Vash looked around wildly for the perfect spot for his letter. “Just a second!” He was trembling again, and the trembling was embarrassing. One of his lovely Zwingli blushes was building in the depths of his cheeks again, and panic was starting to fill his heart. He had no idea why he was so worried about someone finding the letter, but he was, and he couldn’t just throw it somewhere random and hope Roderich found it.

“Come on, Vash! She’s gonna be late for the train!”

Abandoning hope, Vash turned and ran back into the house, but not before throwing the letter over the fence somewhere random.

****

Once inside, Vash wasn’t given a single second to check on his letter. Lilli was chucking a fuss and refusing to go to kindergarten, Vash hadn’t done his homework, and Mr Zwingli couldn’t find his left shoe. Vash had no time for any of this nonsense and didn’t give a single, shining shit about his father’s left shoe but was forced to help with the domestic chaos nonetheless. And so, it was with no idea of the location of his letter that Vash Zwingli found himself once again sitting at the back of class beside Francis Bonnefoy.

“Gilbert Beilschmidt is giving me eyebrows.”

Francis quirked his own eyebrows at this comment. “Quite an interesting present.”

“No, you-!” Vash cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. “Look at him. He’s waggling his eyebrows at me!”

Together, Vash and Francis looked across the room to where Gilbert Beilschmidt was sitting, about two seats down from Elli. He was waggling is eyebrows, just as Vash had said, and was wearing a rather large smirk whilst doing so.

“Huh. So he is.”

Vash turned and narrowed his eyes at Francis. “Any idea as to why he might be doing that?”

“Just what exactly are you accusing me of?” Vash had been expecting Francis to mock him, but the outrage in his voice was really rather sincere.

“I just thought-” Vash was actually at a loss for words. “That maybe, you might have… After we were talking…”

“You think I’d betray you so fast?” He nearly winced at how forlorn Francis sounded.

“…Maybe…?”

“Well yeah, you’re right. I told him.”

Vash was on his feet before the word ‘yeah’ was even fully formed. And then, without knowing exactly what he was doing, two words thundered out of the little Zwingli boy.

“YOU. ASSHOLE.”

****

Francis and Gilbert cornered him mere seconds after Vash had left the principal’s office at the beginning of recess. He wasn’t in too much trouble, what with his completely clean record, plus it meant Mr Honda was too distracted to even ask for his incomplete homework. Vash actually felt far worse when he saw the two blondes come out of nowhere as he left the main building.

“I want to apologise,” said Francis, dripping with sincerity.

“Well _I_ want you to die.” And with that, Vash pushed himself between Gilbert and Francis and began to storm off. But Gilbert had grabbed the back of his jumper, making escape impossible.

“I am sorry, Vash,” said Francis.

“Then why the hell did you tell him?” asked Vash, pushing Gilbert’s hand from the hem of his green jumper.

“He asked?”

“That’s no excuse!” roared Vash, and Gilbert had to hold him back again, but this time from clawing at Francis’s face.

“Maybe he can help?” suggested Francis, albeit with his hands still shielding his face.

Vash turned to Gilbert, who released him. “How can he help? He’s a moron.”

“Hey!” yelled Gilbert. “I am not!”

“You were poking your nose in other people’s business!”

“Yeah, that means I’m nosy, not stupid!” Vash, dumbfounded by the sheer idiocy of Gilbert’s argument, conceded the fight and returned his attention to Francis.

“How do you expect to help, though? I can handle this on my own.”

“That wasn’t really the vibe I was getting yesterday,” said Francis gently.

“Well maybe I found a solution!”

Francis was surprised, but Gilbert just grinned. “Go on. Let’s hear it, then.”

Vash stopped his constant, grumpy slouch and drew himself up to his full height. He was still shorter by far compared to the other two, though.

“I wrote a letter,” he announced proudly.

“Uh huh, and how did that work out?” Gilbert’s grin was now decidedly mocking. Vash was pleased to see that Francis’s eyes still maintained some semblance of sincerity, though.

“I don’t know, I only put it out this morning,” he muttered.

“Well I guess I don’t have to do anything for now,” said Gilbert cheerfully and started wandering away. Vash was only too happy to see him go.

“I hope your letter works out, Vash,” said Francis, putting a hand on Vash’s shoulder. “And I am sorry about Gilbert. He is a total moron, and I was a total moron for giving away your secrets just because he asked.”

Vash sighed and Francis removed his hand from the other’s shoulder. “It’s alright, Francis. Just don’t do it again.”

Francis’s smile instantly turned from sincere to sheepish and Vash was filled with horror.

“Does my cat count?”

Vash relaxed so quickly he almost felt dizzy. “Wait,” he said. “Why were you talking about me with your cat?”

Francis shrugged. “I like to keep her updated on all my friends.”

****

Vash didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. Like there was any way Roderich could have found, read, and written a reply to his letter already. It was simply too much to expect. Still, he found it very hard to sit still on the bus home. He shot off the bus, through the front door and out the back at light speed the second the bus doors opened. As he zoomed across the backyard, though, he slowed his pace a tad, just in case Roderich was in the courtyard.

Vash was simultaneously disappointed and relieved when he found the courtyard to be devoid of violinists, but those emotions only occupied his mind for mere seconds. There was something far more important to behold. There, tied to one of the fleur-de-lis toppings of the fence, was the most beautiful thing Vash had ever seen. More beautiful than Roderich himself, and no he did not care what that sounded like. Slowly, as if he was dreaming, Vash reached out and retrieved it. Taking it in his hands, he ran his fingers over the smooth, creamy paper and the tiny letters on the front where a name had been written.

His name.

It was an envelope addressed to him.

Vash turned it over and nearly squeaked in excitement.

On the back was a splendidly ostentatious purple seal, engraved with a coat of arms, some gratuitous Latin and the name Edelstein.

Roderich had written back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long. I really have no excuse. Well, school started up again, but that was actually ages ago and I've had plenty of time. I hope you liked the chapter anyway~!


	7. Maturity in Many Forms

Vash had been doubtful of his own writings from the moment he first set pen to paper. But now, holding this beautifully packaged reply, he felt positively sick with doubts. Although he knew it would be ridiculously unlikely for Roderich to have taken such a beautiful envelope just to tell him he thought Vash’s letter was stupid, he was shaking all the way back to his room nevertheless.

 

He wondered what Roderich had written about. He couldn’t even remember what he had put in his own letter. There was a moment of intense embarrassment as he remembered his strange rants on everything, his ponderings of the world that not even he could understand. Perhaps Roderich agreed with him on some points. He hoped so.

 

The beautiful purple seal stamped to the back looked so precious to Vash, he was quite reluctant to open the envelope at all. That and he wasn’t sure how to break the damn thing anyway. He fiddled with it for a while and almost dropped it when he finally broke the seal. Shattered the seal would be more accurate, actually. And then he discovered something. He had assumed it was the material of the envelope that had made it so solid, but this was not the case. There was a huge wad of paper inside, folded awkwardly in great contrast to the nicety of the ornate envelope. Roderich had clearly been rather eager to reply.

 

Vash found himself giggling with excitement as he pulled all the pieces of paper from the envelope. Jumbled together on the desk, they looked even more disorderly and childish. All of the papers were folded as small as possible, creased dramatically and numbered painstakingly in a careful but still shaky hand. Vash counted twelve of them before he began the unfolding.

 

Roderich’s handwriting fascinated him and, before he read the letter proper, he scanned the pages, taking in the way he formed his words, if not the words themselves. He was clearly trying very hard to write in small, neat letters – and failing. The letters were small, but also shaky and Vash wondered if Roderich was maybe overly conscious of his handwriting. Then again, Vash knew he couldn’t criticize anyone for being overly conscious of anything, what with his own rampant pedantic tendencies.

 

The letter began with five words. _So your name is Vash_. He hadn’t even realised Roderich didn’t know his name. Then again, their conversations had hardly been the most informative things in the world. Vash continued to read. And to him, the letter just got better and better.

 

The next sentence was _You sure have a lot to say_ , and for a moment Vash lost all confidence. But then Roderich went on to mention how he had misjudged his neighbour, and actually admired how much he thought about things other people would have deemed pointless. Vash had to put down the letter and sit very still for a moment after reading this. But there was so much more.

 

Roderich wanted to know if snakes had ever had legs, how humanity came up with the idea of measuring time precisely, and what the first person to milk a cow had been trying to do. As he read through the letter, Vash felt his small smile growing ever larger. Roderich was hilarious, although whether intentionally or not Vash had no idea. He loved the ridiculous things he thought about, but he was rather disappointed at the lack of information on Roderich himself. Then again, he supposed he should have expected that, as he hadn’t spoken in the least about himself in his own letter.

 

The letter had looked huge when Vash had first laid it out on his desk, but it only took him a few minutes to plough through it. As soon as he finished the last page, he immediately turned back to the first one to read it yet again. Loved the way Roderich wrote. Not his handwriting, mind (although he did find the overly-cautious script to be endearing), but his speech patterns. Roderich spoke as if he was simultaneously certain and unsure of everything. Vash had no idea how this worked, but there was no other way he could read Roderich’s words.

 

And then, toward the end of his third read-through, music came in through his window. Classical, violin music. He sat bolt upright and paused, listening to the music for a moment. _Should I go outside? What would I say?_ The music continued playing. _Perhaps I should go outside just to make sure it is him playing_. It was a ridiculous excuse and Vash knew it, but he wanted to see Roderich, and see Roderich he would.

 

He could see the courtyard from his bedroom window, but the angle and the line of bushes and trees obscured any sight of Roderich himself. Besides, Vash liked being near Roderich when he played. The music seemed to sound better when he could see the violinist.

 

“Wow, you’re really rushing around today, huh?” said his father as Vash sped to the back door.

 

“Yeah, I suppose so,” said Vash, pausing at the door only long enough to reply.

 

“Well when you’re done in the yard…” His father paused for a moment when he realised Vash was already gone, and then raised his voice. “Vash, I need to talk to you!”

 

Vash, however, wasn’t listening to the high-volume Swiss-Italian accent booming from the back door. There was a far sweeter sound filling his ears and he was getting closer and closer to the source with each passing second. He knew nothing of classical music or the usual curriculum of violin students, so there was no way for Vash to know he was actually listening to a rather ordinary rendition of an average, unknown, Grade 4 exam piece. To him, the song was as grand as any orchestra’s finale.

 

And then the violinist himself came into view and everything suddenly became somehow _more_ amazing. He played with such dedication, his incredible and ridiculous indigo eyes wide and staring through his slim spectacles down the length of his violin. He wandered when he played, too. His feet took steps of their own accord and Violin Boy danced with himself around the courtyard. Vash had never given much thought to dancing before, but now he wondered what it would be like. Proper dancing, that is. How it would feel to hold someone else in your arms and lead them around the room, your feet in perfect time with the music and each other, all movements natural and beautiful, carefully coordinated by master musicians. What would it be like to have someone so close to you, so trusting in your movements as to match them perfectly as the rest of the world faded away and all that was left was a perfect violin melody and a pair of impossible indigo eyes…

 

“Hello Vash.”

 

“Hi Roderich.” Vash hadn’t even known his eyes had closed until he opened them, slowly and halfway through his response. Roderich was smiling. Milliseconds later, so was Vash. “I got your letter.”

 

Roderich’s smile seemed to both widen and grow shyer at the same time. “Did you like it?”

 

As a mirror, Vash’s smile did the same and the two were left grinning shyly at each other. “You think a lot,” said Vash eventually. He saw Roderich’s smile begin to slip and started to panic. “I think it’s amazing! You’re just so-!” There came a noise like an injured cat and Vash turned practically purple in blush. The rest of the words seemed to have lodged in his throat and simply wouldn’t budge.

 

But Roderich’s beam was back, in all its incredible awkward glory, and Vash couldn’t have been happier.

 

“I’m working on a reply right now!” It wasn’t really a lie, Vash had been thinking of things to say to Roderich for years, if even only in the deepest, most private sections of his brain. He just wished he had the courage to say them out loud. “I’ll give it to you as soon as I’m done!”

 

“Don’t give it to me too fast,” warned Roderich. “Or you might think of something great to say but have no letter to put it in.”

 

“Then I’ll write another letter,” said Vash instantly, and felt his voice tremble just at the very end of his sentence. Roderich’s awkward beam had faded into something else. No teeth showing and not as wide but Vash’d be damned if it didn’t look ten times more tender.

 

“Mum’s home.”

 

The sudden and completely unexpected appearance of his little sister surprised Vash so much he let out what could only be described as a squeal, to both Lilli and Roderich’s amusement.

 

“Lilli!” he exclaimed, trying to ignore Roderich’s giggle. “What are you doing out here?”

 

“Dad told me to come get you because Mum’s home a-and they want to talk to you,” stuttered Lilli. Mrs. Zwingli often worried about her daughter’s halting, shy speech patterns, but Vash had always found his sister adorable. No exceptions.

 

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll just be a few seconds.” Lilli didn’t move. “Well, go on!”

 

“D-dad said I had to come get you.”

 

“Ugh, why are you so stubborn, it’s so annoying.” Vash exhaled, sharp and disgruntled, then turned his attention back to Roderich. “I’ll have a reply for you soon,” he said. “But right now I have to go, so I’ll see you… well, later I guess.”

 

“Bye, Vash.” 

 

Roderich’s smile was almost completely faded, but Lilli was already dragging Vash away. Desperate not to leave his neighbour in a sad state, Vash called out,

 

“You played really well today!” But for some reason the compliment had the wrong effect. Roderich’s smile disappeared completely and his eyes fell from Vash’s to land on the violin he still held. Something new glittered in the impossible indigo eyes as they stared at the instrument, something dark, contemptuous and, strangely enough, lonely.

 

Vash felt a seed of worry begin to take root in his heart as he watched his friend disappear behind a row of bushes. But he had no time to feel it bud as he was suddenly back in the house with both parents waiting for him. Lilli dashed off as soon as she could, leaving Vash alone in the living room with his parents. It was only now that Vash started to wonder why his parents had wanted to talk to him all afternoon.

 

“What’s going on?” he asked, suddenly terrified.

 

“Oh calm down, Vash,” said his mother. “It’s nothing _bad_.” Vash did not like the stress she put on that word.

 

“We were just thinking that your birthday is coming up soon and maybe you’d like to throw a little party this year or something,” said his father.

 

Of all the things in all the world that his parents could have said Vash had expected this the least.

 

“A party?” His parents nodded. “But… _why_?”

 

“Well Vash, it’s a thing kids do.” He hated it when his father stated the obvious. “Besides, you’re turning twelve this year! Last birthday in primary school, don’t you want to do something special?”

 

“If you want me to do something special, couldn’t we go out to a restaurant or something? You keep saying you want to take us to the Alps to visit nonno and nonna, that’d be something special!” He paused, disheartened by the looks on his parents faces. “But a party… I really don’t want something like that…”

 

“Well if you prefer something smaller,” said his mother, “why don’t you and a few friends go to the movies or have a picnic or something?”

 

“Can’t I just do something with you guys like every year? That’s always fun!”

 

“Vash you need to start hanging out with kids your own age. You never bring anyone over here, you never go out…” Vash’s mother looked exhausted in her pause. Vash had never seen her tired before in his life. “You need friends, dear.”

 

“I have friends.”

 

“Who?” 

 

The silence that followed was the most awkward and painful experience of Vash’s young life. All the same, he managed to keep eye contact with his parents the whole time, hoping his silence would appear to stem from defiance and not the lump growing in his throat. The silence was broken at last by a deep sigh from Mr Zwingli and both parents turning away.

 

“Can I go now?”

 

“Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been two whole months and I'm SO SORRY. I've had a lot of family problems and a massive workload and like three books in the works but all the time I was still hoping I could get back to work on my fanfiction. And hey look! I worked on my fanfiction! Updates might be pretty terrible from here on out, just saying. But this one was bigger than all the others so far so... yay? And I kinda want to draw something Edge-related but knowing me if I ever do it'll take three years blarg. 
> 
> Just to clear things up the school system I'll be using is the Australian one which is Primary School (kindergarten to year 6) and then High School (year 7 to 12) just because I understand it after spending the last 10 years clawing my way through it. But that's totally unimportant it's just stuff that happens in the background and indicates the growing-up-ness of characters yay.
> 
> Also Roderich was playing "An Alpine Tune" by David Matthews. Which is an actual Grade 4 violin test piece (at least it is here). This is beyond irrelevant I just thought it would be appropriate.


	8. A Day to Look Back on and Cry Over When You're Old

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I FELT SO BAD ABOUT THE TWO MONTH HIATUS I WROTE THIS CHAPTER IN 3 DAYS
> 
> I hope you enjoy
> 
> (also yes FrUK is actually a pairing that will be in this story, so I added that to the tags. I'm sorry if anyone doesn't like it)

Erzsébet Héderváry did not have long hair. It was quite short, actually, just long enough to brush her shoulders and maybe be pulled into a small pony tail. So it was a complete and utter mystery to Vash as to how she had braided it the next day at school.

 

“I’m pretty sure girl hair defies all known laws of the universe,” he said to Francis while Mr Honda was writing something on the board. Vash was in the process of balancing several pencils on his face, while Francis was scribbling something in French all over his notebook.

 

“Hmm?” asked Francis dreamily.

 

Vash rolled his eyes. “ _Elli_ ,” he explained. “She’s got practically the same amount of hair as I do and she somehow managed to get into a plait.”

 

“Oh. I did that.”

 

Vash turned to face his desk neighbour (stiffly, as not to disturb the pencils on his face) with an expression part confusion, part dismay and all contempt. “You braided Elli’s hair?”

 

“Yeah. Before school.”

 

Vash shifted his expression to somehow convey even _more_ contempt and a pencil fell off. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”

 

Finally Francis looked up from his strange French doodling and faced Vash. “How did you not know that? We’re friends. You and Elli are friends. And thus by the process of ‘duh, Vash’, Elli and I are friends.”

 

Vash was quiet for a moment and then plucked the remaining pencils from his face. Francis returned to his doodles. With his head down, the young Francophone missed the small smile that graced Vash’s face moments later.

 

***

 

The day passed much as usual and Vash found himself wondering how he had thought he had no friends. He sat with Francis, Elli and crazy Gilbert Beilschmidt at recess, as usual. He wasn’t quite sure when Gilbert had started sitting with them, or even when he had personally, but it seemed totally normal. At lunch he went to the library. It was really only out of habit that he spent those 45 minutes in the reference section, looking at books on modern warfare, but he did it anyway. Francis tagged along, as usual, and looked at books on fairytales. Vash never understood that. What was so interesting about kids’ stories? But of course he never said this to Francis – he was too busy being talked at.

 

Francis liked to talk about this one aristocrat kid, Arthur Kirkland. The one who’s name was scrawled all over Francis’s notebooks. Vash suspected the things in French also had something to do with the boy. He didn’t know much about Arthur, only that he lived just a few streets away and was perpetually grumpy. He was home-schooled, like most aristocrat kids except for Elli, and if you trusted the nonsense that came out of Francis’s mouth, he was the most perfect person ever to exist.

 

“He’s really quite adorable, I promise. Most people only think of him as unnecessarily angry and I suppose they’re actually right, but don’t you think that’s just so cute? When he-”

 

“Francis,” said Vash, putting down his book and slicing through his friend’s tedious monologue. “My birthday’s coming up soon.”

 

“Mine was a few weeks ago,” said Francis cheerfully. “Remember? I brought in-”

 

“Little pastries for everyone, yes I remember. But for mine, uh, I was thinking of maybe, you know, doing something with people…”

 

Francis put aside his book on fairytales so he could let out a quiet laugh. “Wow, Vash, you certainly have your party organised!”

 

“Shut up.” Vash was blushing now, but whether from anger or embarrassment he couldn’t tell. “And it’s not a party. I wasn’t thinking of something _big_. I just thought maybe you, me, Elli and the creepy German kid if I have to.”

 

“And Roderich.”

 

Vash certainly knew why he was blushing now. “I-! Well… I mean…”

 

“You _like_ him!” teased Francis in an infuriating sing song voice that made him sound like a little kid.

 

“I thought we established that!” barked Vash. Rather loudly, actually, as several other students turned to look at him. He sighed and looked away just as Francis replied.

 

“You really shouldn’t be yelling in a library, Vash.” 

It was the most sarcastic comment he’d ever had directed at him.

 

“Let’s go outside then, because at this rate I’m gonna punch you in the face before lunch is over.”

 

Francis was all too happy to follow Vash out into the outskirts of the playground, practically skipping out of the old, dilapidated building the school called a library. The two made their way to a place where they knew they wouldn’t be interrupted. Behind the toilet block.

 

“So what exactly is your position in regards to your little aristocrat?” asked Francis the moment they arrived. “And didn’t you mention you were writing him a letter? How did that work out?” 

 

“He’s not…” Vash couldn’t even be bothered any more. “Actually, the letter worked out quite well. He replied almost immediately.”

 

“Oo- _oo_ -oo,”jeered Francis and Vash felt himself blush. Not the harsh blush of anger and embarrassment, but a softer one.

 

“…With a twelve page letter.”

 

“ _OOOOO_!” Vash was grinning and despite the playful punches he was receiving he could tell Francis was no longer making fun of him. He seemed to be almost cheering for him, actually. “You just have to invite him, then!” Vash looked away. “Oh come on, the boy wrote you a twelve-page letter! He’s head over heels in-”

 

“Slow down, Francis!” Vas had actually lifted his hands in front of his face to ward off Francis’s insinuations, bringing forth rather loud sniggering.

 

“But you just said you like him.”

 

“I said I liked him. Nothing more. I think he’s interesting, I like talking to him – although I am terrible at it – and he’s…” As Vash’s sentence fell away, Francis’s eyebrows. “Well, you know.”

 

“I’m afraid I don’t…”

 

Vash waved his hands rapidly in front of his face. “It’s not important! I was asking you if you wanted to hang out on my birthday, that’s all! Why does everything just suddenly become Roderich-centred whenever we talk?” He thought for a moment. “Do _you_ like-”

 

“No no no no no no. I would never be so rude as to snatch a boy from underneath your feet like that! It would be the complete opposite of romance.” Francis gave a great fake swoon and collapsed against the toilet block wall. “Unless of course you think things would be more… _dashing_ , if you snatched him from me.”

 

Vash just stared at his friend for a moment, then smiled. “Well I wouldn’t want to take you away from your dear Arthur Kirland, would I?”

 

“Hey hey hey hey hey!” And the two collapsed into a harmless fight, with quite a good deal of laughter.

 

***

 

Vash spent the entirety of his afternoon writing a reply to Roderich. He sat as his desk with his window thrown wide open and listened as his neighbour filled the air with the sweet notes of his violin. After receiving such a beautiful reply from Roderich, Vash was determined to respond in kind. He hunted through his parents study until he found the nicest paper in the house along with a pen so fancy he wasn’t even sure how to hold it. It felt strange to write about things like his artillery designs and Francis’s habit of talking to his cat with such fine writing equipment, but Vash was too excited to care. 

 

As the sun dropped below the trees, Roderich’s last notes faded away and Vash put down his pen, the young boy living on the Edge sat back in his chair and smiled. Nothing spectacular had happened in the past 24 hours. In fact, it had been a pretty normal day for Vash, all things considered. But he thought that just maybe, this could have been the best day of his life.

 

Oh how he would miss it.


	9. A Very... Something Birthday

“What are we even doing?” 

 

 _I really shouldn’t have brought the creepy German kid,_ Vash thought to himself for the umpteenth time. Elli seemed to share his views as she chose that moment to bounce her soccer ball off Gilbert’s head. Technically it was Vash’s soccer ball, a birthday gift, but once Elli had proved herself to be the star of their two-a-side soccer games no one had objected to her carrying it around for the rest of the day.

 

What bothered Vash the most about Gilbert’s question, however, was that it was quite well founded. They weren’t really doing anything, and it was annoying. They’d started the birthday celebrations at midmorning, in the park at the end of Vash’s street. Francis and Gilbert had been quite fascinated by this park, what with it being beyond the Edge and all, but their interest had waned when they realised it was just an average park with slightly fancier-looking trees. They wasted time until lunch with soccer games and rounds of some bizarre hide-and-seek-like game Gilbert invented, far too complex for anyone but him to understand. But after lunch (and, at Francis’s insistence, birthday cake) at the Zwingli house, the four had been rereleased into the wild, with no idea what to do. Now they were just sort of wandering around.

 

“Let’s go have a look at all the old aristocrat houses,” Francis suggested.

 

“They’re not that interesting,” Elli had replied.

 

“You just want to go to Kirkland House,” muttered Vash.

 

“I actually don’t,” said Francis. “That place is terrifying; it looks like vampires live there or something.”

 

“What if they  _are_ vampires,” said Gilbert. “And they’re just biding their time until they eat us all!”

 

“That’d be good news for Franci, then,” said Elli. “He’d be the protagonist of a cheap romance novel!”

 

Francis responded to this with a light shove and a loud, melodramatic soliloquy in French.  Vash had no clue what he was saying, but he caught several names, most of which were Arthur’s, usually followed by a great, swooning sigh.

 

“Maybe we could go to see the aristocrat houses,” suggested Gilbert once Francis’s show was done. “I don’t give half a fat rat’s ass about architecture or anything,” he added when everyone stared at him. “I just haven’t seen Antonio in a while.”

 

“Oh yeah,” said Francis. “Me and Gilbert used to be really close to Toni when we were little. What happened with him anyway? He seemed to drop off the face of the earth or something.”

 

Gilbert shrugged. “I think his parents took him out of public school because he wasn’t stuck-up enough or something. Last I heard he was being homeschooled.”

 

Elli let out a great snort that sounded surprisingly bitter. “I never knew why all the other aristocrat families did that to their kids.”

 

“They’re afraid,” said Vash. “That’s what my mum always says.” Mrs Zwingli had never been fond of the faded old class barrier of their and while his father had always chalked that up to her far away origins, Vash often suspected she was in the right.

 

“Afraid of what?” asked Elli. “That their kids might have fun or make friends or think for themselves or  _what_?” She punctuated her last word with a great kick of the soccer ball and sent it flying into some nearby bushes. The boys could only exchange awkward glances as she stomped off, grumbling, to retrieve it.

 

As she stormed off without them, Vash wondered what it was like being the only aristocrat kid at their school. He supposed it would actually be rather lonely having to listen to kids talk about their home lives and plans for the future and never really be able to connect them, to know but not fully understand. He realised rather belatedly he knew even less about aristocrats than Elli did about the kids on the other side of the Edge. As he jogged after the others he made a mental note to ask Roderich about his daily life. At the very least it had to be more interesting than his own.

 

“-But do you actually now where Antonio lives?” Elli was saying as Vash caught up with the group.

 

Gilbert shrugged. “Somewhere called Casa de Fernandez-Carriedo…?” he said, making Francis laugh. “Whatever. All we have to do is go beyond the Edge and wander around until we find it.”

 

“How will you know what house it is?” asked Vash.

 

“Yeah, are you just going to waltz up to some random house and hope he lives there?” asked Elli. “And how big do you reckon my side of the Edge is? You can’t fit fifteen manor houses in a small space, you know.”

 

“Fine! Whatever!” yelled Gilbert. “Go wander around and do nothing all day! If you’re just gonna point out how stupid I am, I’m going home.” And he began to stalk off, leaving the other three in a definite state of surprise.

 

Elli held the soccer ball out to Vash. He took it. She ran after Gilbert and neither Francis nor Vash stopped her.

 

“Sorry about that,” said Francis.

 

Vash shrugged. “Not your fault. I didn’t really want to invite him anyway.” He sighed, then looked around. “Do you want to do something else, now?”

 

Francis shrugged. “Not particularly. I think I’m just going to go home.”

 

“Alright,” said Vash. “Sorry this didn’t work out as well as I hoped it would.”

 

Francis let out a short little laugh. “I had fun today, Vash. Don’t be so hard on yourself. And happy birthday.”

 

A smile naturally came to Vash’s lips as he waved while Francis walked off, but it slipped away once his friend was out of view. He couldn’t help but think that the day would have gone much better if Roderich had been with them.

 

***

 

He had invited Roderich, of course. A few days before his birthday, Vash had walked out to the Edelstein’s courtyard for the first time in a while and asked Roderich in person. It had taken a quite a deal of self-persuasion before he had been able to crumple up the note he’d written and just speak to his neighbour instead. Now, Vash wished he had stuck with the idea of the note.

 

Roderich’s reaction had been nothing like what he’d been expecting. Of course, he hadn’t been expecting any great exclamation of joy or anything, he hadn’t even been expecting Roderich to accept. That much. Hoping would be a better word. But Roderich had appeared practically terrified at his neighbour’s suggestion and had blurted out a very strange apology and vague explanation.

 

“Oh! Um… Well, you see…” he had continued with the stuttered half-words until Vash had near yelled “WHAT?” at him. “my parents wouldn’t like it. They don’t like me hanging out with kids that… uh…”

 

“Kids from the other side of the Edge?” asked Vash.

 

Roderich nodded methodically. “They don’t let me go to school and they don’t even like me leaving the house. They really wouldn’t like it…”

 

“Oh,” Vash had said.

 

“I mean, I’d  _like_ to go but-”

 

“It’s fine I understand,” said Vash, flashing a quick and painfully fake smile.

 

As he walked home from his “party”, between wondering where the hell Elli and Gilbert ended up and cringing at his never-ending ability to ruin social situations, Vash mulled over how he could’ve handled Roderich’s invitation better. _I should’ve been nicer, I shouldn’t have smiled so awkwardly, why did I say that “oh” it sounded so stupid and rude I really should have just written him a note I bet he never wants to talk to me again but I still should have talked to him again I’ve absolutely ruined everything I’ll never be able to_ -

 

He’d reached his house, the lovely old one that stood on the Edge, too small to be a manor but damn big all the same. And, of course, Edelstein Manor stood next to it – hidden somewhat by the vast expanses of gardens between the actual manor and the road. But most importantly, music was coming from somewhere deep within that manor. Violin music.

 

Vash raced through his gate and sped down the side of the house, reaching the gap in the bushes in almost record time. Roderich was waiting for him, indigo eyes wide and cheery, violin perched on his shoulder. When Vash appeared, he gave a tender smile and began a rendition of happy birthday on his violin.

 

“Sorry I couldn’t come to your party,” he said once he was done.

 

“You really shouldn’t be,” replied Vash. “This was the best bit of the whole day.”

 

Roderich smiled even wider. “Happy birthday, Vash.”

 

Vash wasn’t crying. That much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I have writer's block for literally everything else I have to do I've decided to just throw myself into this. In retrospect I probably should have planned this fic out more before getting so invested in it but how cares! Let's see where it takes us.


	10. Vash You Need to Keep Calm

Vash did not like to pester. He thought it annoying, childish, and he knew there were much better ways of getting information out of people. But sometimes it was just unavoidably necessary.

“Elli, come on, why won’t you talk to me?”

“I’ll talk to you Vash, just so long as you change the subject.”

Vash had been expecting quite a reaction from Elli when he started posing questions about Roderich’s personal life, but the frosty anger he had received certainly wasn’t it. He didn’t like pestering, but he also hadn’t liked the way Roderich had spoken about his parents, so he’d spent the past two months trying to wring information out of Elli. It hadn’t worked out so well.

“Elli ignoring you again?” asked Gilbert, emerging from a nearby building and falling into step with Vash. 

“Yeah,” said Vash quietly. To him, the only thing worse than provoking such a reaction from Elli was the huge amount of guilt he felt for doing so. 

“Pssh, I know how that feels,” said Gilbert. “Whatcha do?”

Vash sighed. “I keep asking her about the Edelsteins, and I know it pisses her off but she won’t tell me anything about them.”

“Maybe they’re the vampires!” cried Gilbert. “And Elli’s just protecting their secret because ooh! All the aristocrats are vampires, it makes perfect sense!”

“No.” Francis had approached them from the rear, wrapped an arm around Vash’s shoulder and led him away from Gilbert in less than a second. Vash would have found it quite impressive if he hadn’t been so caught off guard. To Gilbert’s credit he didn’t seem so surprised when Vash and Francis disappeared into an passageway between buildings, but perhaps he had just been too focused on his weird vampire theory to notice. 

“Vash what are you doing?” Vash found it to be rather odd to hear such a serious voice coming out of someone as melodramatic as Francis Bonnefoy. 

“Talking with you between Blocks B and D, what does it look like?”

Clearly that hadn’t been the answer Francis wanted. “With Elli, what are you doing with Elli? She’s been really tetchy lately and when I finally got her to talk to me she said you were being a jerk!”

“I wasn’t the jerk, she was the jerk!” Vash wished he’d phrased that better. It sounded painfully like the argument of an insulted toddler. 

“What’s going on? I can’t get a straight answer out of either of you and if I ask Gilbert he’ll just tell me something stupid like you’re being haunted by pastries or something.”

“Did you hear his new theory on how all aristocrats are vampires?”

“Vash!” He hadn’t even known Francis was capable of using his loud voice in genuine anger. He always seemed so optimistic. 

“Look, I don’t really know what’s going on. I’ve been trying to talk to her about the Edelsteins for like, months or something, but she won’t tell me anything!” He sighed. “I didn’t mean to upset her, I promise.”

“If it upset her so much, why did you keep asking about them? Vash I know you’re in love with this kid or something but you can’t-”

“This is serious, Francis!” Vash bellowed.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Francis yelled back. “You made Elli cry, that’s pretty damn serious!”

Vash’s breath caught in his throat. “I made her cry?” he asked, very quiet compared to his previous yelling. “I-I really, honestly didn’t mean to…” He trailed off and was left just vaguely gesturing, trying to get his remorse across somehow. 

“Well, not exactly cry,” said Francis. “She’s kind of like you, she doesn’t cry at anything.” Vash didn’t respond to that. “But she’s really upset and it’s your fault.”

“Look, I am really, really sorry for upsetting Elli and I honestly didn’t mean to, but I was worried about Roderich! There’s something going on with his family and it’s kind of freaking me out.”

“Um, duh, they’re aristocrats what did you expect? Several hundred years of being the most important people around and suddenly they’re useless – stability isn’t really their thing. But you can’t just put Roderich ahead of Elli like that!”

“So you want me to put Elli ahead of Roderich?”

Francis let out a great groan. “No! You don’t have to choose anyone over anyone! Just balance, Vash, it’s not that hard! You can worry about Roderich without bothering Elli and you don’t have to ignore Roderich in order to be nice to Elli! Easy.”

Vash decided to steady himself with a few deep breaths before speaking again. “You’re right. I was mean to Elli and I did put Roderich ahead of her. I’ll go apologise to her.” He gave Francis a quick nod and began to head out into the open once more.

“Good job, Vash,” said Francis, giving him a quick thumbs up. “And you know, she’s not the only person in town who knows anything about the Edelsteins.”

Vash paused just before he left the passage. “Yeah, but she’s probably the only one who’ll talk to me.”

“I beg to differ.”

***

Kirkland House was probably the last place Vash would have found himself visiting casually after school. The huge, gothic mansion towered above all local houses, both aristocrat and otherwise, and seemed to peer down over its spacious gardens to anyone who dared approach its gates. Vash always thought it was odd that the huge property was named Kirkland House, as not only was the building far too huge to be considered a house in anyone’s mind, but the majority of the property was actually taken up the creepiest gardens imaginable. Colossal pine trees covered the gardens, and here and there huge bushes of both red and white roses had been planted, presumably to lighten the garden’s mood but somehow only making it even scarier. 

“It’s even worse up close,” Vash muttered as Francis repeatedly mashed the call button on the gate’s intercom. “And will you quit calling the house so much, he’s gonna get pissed off.”

“He’s always pissed off,” Francis murmured. “And there’s so much chaos in that house you have to press it a million times before the hear you.”

“Chaos?” Vash asked. “In Kirkland House?” He looked back up at the mansion that lay at the end of the road in front of them. Nothing about it suggested anything but a sombre, almost morbid serenity. 

Francis just cocked his eyebrows, but any knowing gloating he may have been considering was quashed by a sudden wave of noise from the intercom. Vash was so taken aback by the shattering of the calm that it took him a moment to understand what exactly he was hearing. The background was nothing but a swarm of indistinct yelling, the constant but ineffectual ghost of a whistle, and the occasional thud often followed by a groan of pain. The foreground was even more yelling, but despite the impossibly thick accent, Vash could make out what it was saying.

“Oi, ah, hey! Who’s out there, uh?” An older teenager, Vash judged, probably Arthur’s brother. He wondered if the painful noises in the background were more Kirkland brothers – Francis had mentioned Arthur had quite a few. 

“It’s Francis Bonnefoy.” 

A massive roar went up from the intercom, making the speakers rattle and the sound distort. Vash wanted to think it had just been a coincidence, and had nothing to do with his friend’s identity, but that would hardly be the case. If anyone could provoke that kind of a reaction, Francis Bonnefoy could. 

“ARTHUR,” someone bellowed over the intercom. It may have been the same person who took the initial call, but Vash just couldn’t tell over the clamour. 

“I’m standing right here, you gigantic ginger git.” Arthur’s neat, clear voice was a massive contrast to all the shouting and coarse accents in the background. Vash couldn’t help but feel sorry for someone like Arthur growing up amongst people like that. 

“YOUR GIRLFIEND’S HERE.”

The clamour in the background changed from a vague jeer to genuine laughter and Arthur muttered something indistinct that got lost in the laughter. Then the call cut off. 

“Are they always like that?” Vash asked after letting the new silence sit for a while. 

“Pretty much,” said Francis. “Even when they’re not at home they’re constantly dog-piling on each other. It wasn’t ‘til they trashed my dad’s office that they got banned from the building.” He noticed Vash’s confused look and elaborated. “My dad works for Lady Kirkland, in the law firm in town.”

“Mrs Kirkland, you mean. They aren’t allowed to hold titles anymore.”

“Don’t tell that to Lady Kirkland.”

Vash didn’t like the smile on Francis’s face or the raised eyebrows or the air of casual superiority it all gave off. He was the one who lived on the Edge, and if people were going to point that out and mutter about it, he’d like to be the only one! How did Francis end up knowing so many aristocrats, anyway?

His bitter thoughts were pushed to the side at the arrival of the grand distraction himself, Arthur Kirkland. Vash could practically feel Francis jittering with excitement as the young aristocrat approached, peddling a very attractive vintage bike. But in his opinion, the bike was much better looking than the boy riding it, who was all bushy eyebrows, freckles, wild hair and skinny knees. The more he discovered about Arthur Kirkland, the less he understood Francis’s infatuation with him. Not that he disliked Arthur or anything, but on the rare occasions that he’d spoken with him, he’d found the young aristocrat to be both reserved and snappish at the same time, and those eyebrows… Vash had no idea how they existed, much less how Francis could be so enamoured with their host. He snuck a quick look at Francis’s excited face and had to bite his lip to stop from scoffing at how Francis had tied his hair into a ponytail. He only did that on special occasions, Vash knew.

“Afternoon, Francis,” said Arthur, bringing his bike to a slow stop. “And hello… Vash.” The hesitation was practically invisible but Vash saw it all the same. For the first time he wondered if Arthur was always so brusque and formal, or was it just something that happened in the presence of strangers. 

“Hi Arthur,” grinned Francis “We need your library!”

“You’re not going to play rugby in it like my brothers did last week, are you? It took me forever to get everything back in order and some books are still in for repairs.”

“Rugby? Is that what that noise was?” asked Vash before he could think. “I mean… when we called the house there was a lot of shouting and I didn’t really know…”

“It’s always rugby,” said Arthur. “Except for cricket season, we swap destructive games then. They’re destroying the kitchen right now, so we’ll go in via the conservatory. But first you have to tell me why you’re suddenly so interested in my library.”

“Vash wants to know about an aristocrat family but he drove Elli insane with his questions.”

“I have no difficulty believing that. Come on, this way.” He hopped off his bike and opened the gate for them. As they stepped into the grounds of Kirkland House, he remounted and began to lead them up the impossibly long driveway. 

“Did you know she once hit that Gilbert kid with a frying pan?”

Both Vash and Francis laughed. “I can see it now,” said Francis. “Imagine the noise it made when it hit that ridiculous head of his.”

“Probably some sort of dull ring,” said Vash, “what with his head being hollow and all.” That time all three of them laughed.

“You know, I’ve learnt a bit about the local aristocrats,” said Arthur a few moments later, “so if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the library I suppose I could pass on some of my own knowledge.”

“Thanks,” said Vash. He had a feeling details of the Edelsteins’ private lives couldn’t be found in the pages of any book. “I can’t imagine the aristocrats of our area would be a very broad topic of study, though.”

Arthur let out a quick chuckle that seemed nowhere near as genuine as his laugh at Gilbert’s expense. “You’d be surprised.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I've decided I simply can't write this thing without having a fully fleshed setting, so be prepared for a butt-load of worldbuilding in the next chapter. From what I'm thinking of doing I've decided to make this fanfic not only AU, but also alternate history. Because it makes absolutely no sense if it was set in a real country yay. And congratulations to Arthur Kirkland for being promoted to main supporting cast! *throws confetti and blasts one of those annoying honking things you get a birthday parties*.
> 
> Oh and I drew Edge-verse Vash: http://frukass.tumblr.com/post/51275188162/i-drew-vash-as-he-appears-in-my-fanfiction-the


	11. Kirkland House

 The conservatory of Kirkland House was surprisingly modest. Vash had been expecting some grand structure akin to an industrial greenhouse or perhaps some sort of ancient conservatory design lost to the ages but in reality, the back of Kirkland House looked very modern. Aside from the remarkably average conservatory there was also an outdoor eating area, a large tennis court off to one side and even further back, behind a clump of more pines, a full-sized football field.

 

“We’re _really_ into sport,” said Arthur as he opened the conservatory door. “My mum wants my brothers to try out for rugby scholarships when they head to university, because there’s no chance in hell they’ll get in on their brains.”

 

“But aren’t you all homeschooled?” asked Vash.

 

“You don’t have to go to school to go to university. You just need to get in.”

 

Arthur led them through the conservatory and a smaller, more modern section of the house until they reached the huge, medieval centre hall. Francis was staring at absolutely everything, taking in all the stone walls and beamed ceilings, period furniture and old Kirkland family heirlooms on display. The way to the library was a convoluted one, especially once they entered the older section of the house. Corridors there seemed to change size along their run, and a hundred different doors lined the walls, each and every one of them identical.

 

“I would never be able to navigate a house as old and beautiful as this,” said Francis, taking a look down one door. “I would get lost just going from the kitchen to the dining room!”

 

“The traditional kitchens are actually very far away from our current dining room, but we never use them,” said Arthur. “And I’ve gotten lost countless times. It took me forever just to learn how to get from one end of the house to the other. And once when I was little, Liam tricked me into the cellars, and then locked all the doors but the one that led to an old servant’s passage. I surprised everyone when I turned up in one of the old drawing rooms a few hours later. Still don’t know how I did it.”

 

Vash wasn’t particularly interested in Arthur’s ramblings – he’d come to learn about the Edelsteins, not the maze that was Kirkland House – but Francis seemed to be enrapt. 

 

“What would you even do with all this house?” Francis asked.

 

Arthur shrugged. “We’re not even a hundred percent sure. I mean, we know what the old bedrooms and dining rooms and such were, but there are some rooms that just seem to be there for the sake of a bigger house.”

 

“How aristocratic,” said Vash, earning a dig in the ribs from Francis.

 

“Quite,” said Arthur, and then opened a door. “The library’s just in here.”

 

Upon crossing the threshold, Francis wasted no time in espousing the beauty of the shelves, the domed roof, the tiers of balconies surrounding the room, and, of course, the thousands and thousands of books. Vash was quieter. The shelves stood several times his height and were all carved from some exquisite dark wood, monsters and fae creatures peering out from the carved scrollwork at the tops, each and every one of them packed tight with tomes of all kinds. He loved them.

 

“This is incredible,” said Vash, even though he knew Arthur would be listening to Francis instead. A library such as the Kirkland’s demanded praise, even if no one would hear it.

 

Arthur cleared his throat rather awkwardly, and tried to wriggle out of the hug Francis had ensnared him in. “The books on the local aristocrats would be with the books on the history of the Empire. They’re just over here.”

 

He gestured to a section of bookshelves that looked no different to Vash than any of the others. Although, some of the books at the very tops of the shelves looked extremely old. Arthur, having somehow escaped Francis’s hug, showed them to the exact bookshelf and squatted down to peer at the lowest row of books.

 

“What exactly were you looking for?” asked Arthur. “Genealogies? Places of origin? Personal histories?”

 

“Uhh,” muttered Vash. Randomly asking Arthur for personal information on the Edelsteins was rapidly looking like much less of a good idea. “Do you have just like… general information? As recent as possible?”

 

“Sure,” said Arthur. “The Braginskis put out some sort of encyclopaedia thing every ten years or so. This one came out just a year ago.”

 

“Why would they bother?” asked Francis. “I can’t imagine many people would read it.”

 

Arthur pulled out the book and shrugged. “Growing sunflowers all day must get boring, I suppose.”

 

The encyclopaedia wasn’t too big, but it was definitely bulky and awkward (“Just like the Braginskis,” Francis had joked.), so the three took it to a nearby table in order to leaf through it.

 

“The Edelsteins, there,” announced Vash when they reached the right page. The entry on the Edelsteins wasn’t too long, just over a page, and only covered the basics. Still, it was information.

 

The family had originally come from Vienna, which Vash felt was obvious even though it was the first time he had known it as a fact, and Edelstien Manor had been built for them shortly before their arrival in 1763. Like all the other aristocrat families of the area, they had basically been glorified captives of the Empire, prominent members of enemy governments allowed to live in peace if they deferred to the Empire. According to their entry, the Edelsteins had gone quietly. According to the entry next to theirs, the Hédervárys had not.

 

“Weird that only three people live in that huge house,” said Francis. “It must feel so empty.”

 

“I have more brothers than I can count and my house still feels empty,” said Arthur. “Must be horrible for the Edelsteins.”

 

“I wonder why they deferred,” said Vash. “It says here that they were close friends of the Austrian Emperor himself, nobody would just walk away from that kind of job security.” Vash’s childhood love of war was flooding back to him, and when coupled with his curiosity of the Edelsteins it made him practically jittery.

 

“None of them just walked away,” said Arthur. “The Empire did terrible things to draw enemies to their side. They succeeded, but none who came over were too happy about it.”

 

“Why would they stay, though?” asked Francis. “The Empire’s been gone for ages, _centuries_. It’s weird that so many of the stolen aristocrat families would still be here. Wouldn’t they just go home?”

 

“Come on Francis, they were _kept_ here, and by the time the Empire was gone, they had lived here for generations,” said Arthur seriously, but not unkindly. “They had the choice of staying here, in their big mansions in some town in the middle of nowhere, or go back to the countries they betrayed, where none of them had gone in living memory. Some did leave, of course, like the Køhlers and Väinämöinens, but for most of them, it was just easier to stay.”

 

“What on earth was that last name?” asked Francis under his breath. Vash shrugged and Arthur plowed on with his lecture.

 

“Even the Hédervárys were eager to return to Hungary, and when the Soviet Union fell the family split in two with most returning to Budapest, and only Elli’s parents remaining here, in their Héderváry Kastély. Actually, I think there was some great aunt with them as well...” Arthur trailed off, but both Vash and Francis had already returned their attentions to the Edelsteins’ entry in the encyclopaedia.

 

There was, as Vash had thought, no specific, more personal, information on the individual Edelsteins – just family history and bland details. He did note with some interest, however, that neither of Vash’s parents were technically employed – their money came from centuries of inheritances and select investments. That helped explain why he never saw them leaving the house, but everybody had to go out sometime, work and school aside. The Edelsteins were odd, and even more so than Vash had previously thought.

 

But all this information – whilst vaguely interesting – was utterly useless in his quest.

 

“Arthur,” he started, wincing at his own awkwardness, “I was wondering if you knew the Edelsteins personally?”

 

Arthur shrugged with surprising elegance and tutted softly, his tongue bouncing on and off the roof of his mouth. “No one really _knows_ the Edelsteins,” he said eventually. “The Hédervárys are the ones closest to them, but with normal people they’d just be considered casual acquaintances. But I have met them, yes. I’ve met everyone.”

 

Arthur certainly was an odd one, Vash decided. Not many people could ooze both self-consciousness and ego at exactly the same time.

 

“Would you agree that they’re… unusual?”

 

“Very much so,” said Arthur, raising his eyebrows. “Aside from looking down on everyone else and never leaving their house, they really don’t get along with each other, either. Makes you wonder how they can stay cooped up together all the time…”

 

“Makes me wonder how they managed to conceive a kid,” Francis joked, earning a full shove from Vash and a sigh from Arthur.

 

“They’re definitely weird, Vash. But not dangerously so. I know they can be quite worrying with the way they act sometimes, but if they decide to stay cooped up in their big mansion and glare at each other all day, that’s their choice. They’re strange, but I know for a fact they’re also actually really lazy. They’re not hurting anyone. Live and let live, really.”

 

***

 

Another letter to Roderich was written (and thrown out, and rewritten a thousand times over) that evening. Vash had never been one for subtleties, he’d be the first to admit that, but now it was important to be as light as a feather in his writing. He filled it with the usual stuff, of course, it would be weird to write a letter without his own musings, then awkwardly wrenched in his argument with Elli (absolutely _dripping_ with remorse, naturally, she and Roderich were friends), and finally started dancing around the topic of his neighbour’s home life.

 

He was terrible at it. Everything he wrote seemed to repeat itself in his head over and over, a harsh mockery of his terrible conversation skills. It all seemed to invasive, too heavyhanded, and all rather rude. Eventually he crossed out huge sections of his letter and rewrote it all, with no mention of the Edelstein family at all. It wasn’t his place to pry, and there were some things he would never know, he just needed to accept that. The new letter was stuffed into an envelope and shoved between two of the wrought-iron fence posts, as usual. But just before he returned to the house, Vash quickly added one last question to the bottom of the letter.

 

_Are you happy, Roderich?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not updating sooner, but the exam-beast was prowling through my life for the past few weeks and then I caught a cold... anyway it's here now! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> As you may have guessed, the Empire did not actually exist, but I'm thinking it sprung up around the mid 17th century and was destroyed in WWII, hence why the Hédervárys had to wait until the end of the Soviet Union before they could actually return to Hungary.
> 
> Also, Héderváry Kastély translatesjust to Héderváry Castle/Mansion, and it is an actual place! http://www.kastelyszalloda.hu/indexen.php   
> That's what Elli's home looks like in my mind now. I'm thinking her family came from the actual Kastély, and had their new "home"(*coughprisoncough*) modelled after the old one.
> 
> Also, every canon character exists SOMEWHERE in this story, but most will not make it to actual "screen"time. So sorry if mentions of the Køhlers and Väinämöinens got anyone's hopes up, but Timo and Matthias are just normal kids living their lives in their respective countries, never to meet with our protagonists.


	12. Happy People

“I would like to sincerely apologise for badgering you about the Edelsteins for the last two months.” Vash paused and licked his lips. “I would also like to apologise for generally being a douche and not apologising earlier.”

 

“Good,” said Elli. “Because lately you’ve been a right royal shitbeak towards me. If it were possible and real, I would send a letter to the High Council of Supreme Asshole-ery and apply for your certified buttface license. I’m sure they wouldn’t take long in approving my request.”

 

Vash sighed and looked away. “I know. I’ve been awful and – Hey!” He was cut off by a solid thump to his shoulder, courtesy of Elli’s fist.

 

“Kidding, Vash,” she smiled. “I know how much you hate to be rude. Besides, I kinda overreacted myself. My parents had been badgering me about the Edelsteins too, and when you started it was just too much and I-”

 

“Yeah,” said Vash. “It’s ok, I totally get it. And I am still really sorry.”

 

 “It’s cool,” said Elli. “We’re cool.”

 

The two turned and began to walk from the back of the toilet block, toward their classroom. Elli’s strong, stocky legs kept carrying her faster, and, much to Vash’s annoyance, he found himself constantly slipping behind her. It’s just because I’m tired, he thought to himself. He hadn’t gotten much sleep that night, wondering about the letter he’d left for Roderich, and particularly the last question.  _Was that out of line? It seemed cool at the time but what if I sound nosy and weird instead of interesting and mysterious? It was so out of place, what if he thinks I suspect something about him…_  He soon realised Elli was staring at him, and then that he was frowning.  _Quick, say something!_

 

“If you don’t mind me asking-” Vash started, eliciting a laugh from Elli and making himself internally cringe. Nice choice of topic, brain.

 

“You want to know why my parents were badgering me about the Edelsteins?” she prompted and he nodded. “Perhaps I  _should_ write to the High Council of Supreme Asshole-ery…”

 

“You don’t have to answer or anything I just wanted to know oh damn I am terrible at this I am so sorry Elli I just-!”

 

“You really are a serious one, aren’tcha, Vash?” she quipped, cutting across the gabble. “I’m joking. It wasn’t anything serious – aristocrat families are always nattering about the others, it just gets really annoying sometimes.  _The Braginskis cut their azaleas this way, maybe we should do the same, Oh look at that, the Fernandez-Carredios have gotten a dog, we should get a pet, Look at that Bentley, maybe we should get a fifth car… The Edelsteins homeschool Roderich, maybe we should do the same for Elli_.”

 

“Wait what?” asked Vash, colour slowly draining from his face. “They’re going to take you out of school!?”

 

“They’re going to homeschool Elli?!” someone cried, leaping from a nearby bush.

 

Both Vash and Elli yelled in surprise, but while Vash gave a wordless shout, Elli cried “What the hell Gilbert!?”

 

Vash belatedly realised that it was indeed Gilbert who had burst from the bush, arms akimbo and legs spread in some ridiculous power-pose that would look more at place on a statue of an old war-hero than a twelve-year-old boy standing in a bush.

 

“I found this awesome nest of tiny bird-things in this bush and I was just casually staring at them when you come along and just casually mention you’re going to be homeschooled! So I think the question is not “What the hell Gilbert?” but “What the hell  _Erzsébet_?”” For some reason, Gilbert seemed to think this counted as a good argument.

 

“That’s not how you say my name,” said Elli, making Gilbert droop slightly in his ridiculous power stance. “And there’s no guarantee that I’ll be homeschooled at all. My parents have been debating it for years; by the time they come to an agreement I’ll have graduated already.” She eyed him warily. “Why do you care, anyway?”

 

Gilbert made an odd “pshh” noise, clearly uncomfortable and sounding rather like a broken sprinkler. “I don’t care at all. It’ll just be weird, going to school without someone constantly yelling at me and beating me up.”

 

“Hey!” Elli cried, giving him a punch on the arm. “I’m not like that!”

 

Vash sighed. “Just go back to your bird-things, Gilbert,” he said. “This isn’t that important, especially not to you.”

 

“Yeah,” said Gilbert aggressively, rolling his shoulders. “Maybe I will. And maybe  _you_ won’t get to look at the bird-things!” And he jumped back into the bush.

 

“Weirdo,” said Elli as she and Vash started off again. “Sometimes he doesn’t seem so bad but he’s just crazy.” She sighed. “You’re right. It isn’t that important. It’s just more of this endless game of Keeping Up With the Edelsteins my parents love to play. It’s just endless, Vash, my parents are more in love with them than you are.”

 

Vash shot her a look and she shot him a smile. 

 

***

 

“Vash, l-look!”

 

“Yes, very nice, Lilli,” he muttered, giving a passing glance to the finger-painting his sister waved in front of him as he headed to the back door.

 

“I-I drew… mountains,” she said softly, gently patting her splodgy triangles. “Miss Br-braginski says they’re good enough f-for big-school. You go to big-school, i-is she truthing?”

 

“Truthing isn’t a word, Lilli,” said Vash, turning to face his little sister and her mountains. “But it is a very nice painting.” She showed him her biggest smile and he in return he gave her a pat on the head.

 

“I’m going t-to big-school next year,” she said rather shyly.

 

“Yes you’ve mentioned that.” With each passing day his little sister grew more and more excited at the idea of graduating preschool, and heading on to “big-school”.

 

“You’re going to b-bigger-big-school next year, r-right?” Vash was less excited about his own upcoming graduation.

 

“It’s called high school. And yeah.”

 

“Two months until we-e finish!” Lilli cheered, waving her painting around.

 

Vash swallowed rather painfully. How was it last term already? High school had never been something that worried at him, but the pace at which it was approaching was seriously alarming.

 

“I’m  _twelve_ ,” he said rather suddenly. In a year –  _less_ than a year – he would be a teenager, a concept that was not so much frightening as it was just  _bizarre_. Vash had never felt anything close to a teenager, and while people like Francis were practically chasing their birthdays, he felt as if he should have just stopped growing when he hit eight.

 

“And I’m five!” giggled Lilli.

 

Vash looked down at her, confused, and shook his head to clear it. Why was he down here?  _Roderich_.

 

“Yes, you’re five. Enjoy being five.”

 

“I want to be six, b-but.”

 

“No you don’t. Just enjoy being five first.” She was looking at him oddly, so he just exhaled and turned back to the door. “I’m going just outside for a bit, okay?”

 

“Can I come?”

 

“Well… Wouldn’t you rather just-”

 

“Vash!” his father yelled from some adjoining room. “Be nice to your sister!”

 

Vash couldn’t even be bothered to sigh. “Alright, hop on my back.”

 

Lilli gave a gleeful giggle and launched herself onto her brother, fidgeting as he adjusted to hold her better. “I lo-o-ove piggybacks,” she said.

 

“Yes, I noticed. Why do you want to go out to the garden, anyway? You’re always inside.”

 

“You’re going out, a-and I’m coming.”

 

Vash sighed. Normally he loved to spend time with Lilli, and he knew that Roderich wouldn’t mind her too much, but somehow having someone else nearby made him a thousand times more awkward. Although, he thought as he juggled opening the backdoor and holding his sister, Roderich might not even be there. He might’ve just left his note. Besides, his sister was just too damn cute to disappoint.

 

There was no violin as Vash trundled down the back steps, and silence continued to reign as he deposited Lilli next to the kiddy pool full of old toys.  _The school bus got stuck in some pretty bad traffic today_ , he thought as he listened to Lilli invent a life story for the plastic turtle she was holding,  _he was probably practicing before I got home_. The thought, though intended to calm him, instead provoked only a slight, twinging annoyance in the back of his mind.  _Don’t be ridiculous,_ he chided himself. It’s not like he’s putting on a performance especially for me or anything. It’s just his violin practice, he can do it whenever he damn well pleases.

 

“Vash you’re not looking at the turtle.”

 

It was one of the least stuttered sentences his sister had ever produced, and he was an instant away from congratulating her before he realised that would probably just embarrass her and bring on more stuttering.

 

“I am looking at the turtle,” he said instead.

 

“You were n-not. You were looking over there.” Lilli lifted a pudgy finger to point. “At the f-fence.”

 

And then Roderich began to play.

 

Lilli stared down at her still-pointing finger, little green eyes wide in incredulity, as if she had somehow summoned the music by pointing.

 

“What was  _th-that_?”

 

“Nothing special,” Vash muttered. “And on an unrelated note I have to go over there now.” 

 

“Is i-it the boy?” Lilli asked, starting to smile.

 

“No, what boy? There is no boy!” As Vash gabbled he began to feel a blush creep up his face.  _Wonderful,_ he thought,  _now even the five-year-old will be able to tell I’m lying._

 

“The Violin Boy!” Lilli cheered. “L-let’s go see him, Vash!”

 

_Violin Boy, why did she have to say Violin Boy?_  “I-I’m quite sure he doesn’t want to be bothered,” said Vash. “Let’s just leave him to his practice.”

 

“Why?” asked Lilli. “You ta-alk to him all th-the time!”

 

“I do not.”

 

Lilli giggled. “Yes you do! Let’s go see him, l-let’s go, let’s go!” And she was off, bouncing toward the fence in a strange toddle-skip-run hybrid, still clutching the plastic turtle.

 

Of course Vash could outrun and outmanoeuvre his five-year-old little sister, but it seemed rather cruel to do that to a little girl, and he was having difficulty thinking of a good excuse to keep her away from Roderich. She was Roderich’s neighbour, too, and besides, normal friends knew each other’s siblings, right? Well, he wouldn’t know, would he? All of his friends were only-children. Except for Gilbert, of course, but Vash wasn’t exactly keen to meet with people related to Gilbert. And didn’t Francis have little cousins who lived with him or something…?

 

“Hello there.”

 

The violin music had stopped, and Roderich had greeted the young Zwingli girl hugging the wrought-iron fence poles.

 

_I really need to stop zoning out like that._

 

“Hi-i,” said Lilli and smiled. “I like your music.”

 

Roderich seemed quite startled at this comment, but smiled in return nonetheless. “Well, thank you very much. I like your turtle.”

 

“His name i-is Frog.”

 

_I should probably stop standing around all dazed like a bludgeoned fish._

 

“Lilli.” Lilli turned to her brother.  _Great, now what do I say?_  “This is Roderich.” That seemed to be the right thing to do, as it caused Lilli to wave and Roderich to smile. “And, uh, Roderich, this is my little sister Lilli.”

 

“Hi Lilli,” said Roderich. “I think I’ve seen you before.”

 

Lilli gave a shy shrug. “I-I’ve heard your music before,” was her reply. “You play a-all the time. It’s v-very pretty. Vash thinks it’s great.”

 

Vash scrunched up his eyes in embarrassment and lifted his little sister into his arms while Roderich gave a quick, albeit genuine, laugh.

 

“You’re so kind to say so,” he told Lilli, but for an instant his eyes flickered to her brother, so full of warmth that it made Vash twinge. “I got your letter,” he continued to Vash. “Here’s your reply.” He rooted around in the pocket of the big indigo jacket draped over one of the courtyard’s chairs until he produced the aforementioned item. Like all of his letters, it was ensconced in a thick envelope of some creamy marbled paper and closed with a thick purple seal.

 

“Thank you,” said Vash, smiling at the letter in an attempt not to be affected by Roderich’s gaze. It didn’t work. “I suppose we should leave you to your violin practice,” he said, shifting his grip on Lilli. “Wouldn’t want you to get in trouble or anything.”

 

Roderich paused for a second, a slight frown of thought growing on his brow. But at some point he seemed to reach a decision, then smiled and leant his crossed arms against the fence in front of him. “It can wait.”

 

***

 

Vash had not had a full conversation with Roderich for some time, a fact he did not actually register until it had been over for some time.  _I wish I’d said something more worthwhile, he thought. I can’t even remember most of what I said. It was probably all stupid anyway. Hell, it was Lilli doing most of the talking anyway._  Without realising it, Vash had started to pace his room.  _I need to talk to him more, stop being so shy and angry and blush-y. But he’s always cooped up in that big house of his. It’s all well and good to want to talk to him, but useless when we only have a few minutes a day._  His pacing had taken Vash to his desk and his eyes flickered over the mess that littered it. Laptop, pens, pencils, notebooks, school books, small plastic bits that had fallen off things, random boxes, pocket dictionary, calendar, too-small hat… He really needed to tidy up some of this crap at some point.

 

Sighing, he flopped down into his deskchair and pulled out Roderich’s letter in the hope of finding some clue as to how he could approach him better. No such luck. The letter was full of the usual sorts of things, Roderich’s little thoughts and observations, small anecdotes from life in Edelstein Manor (from what Vash could gather, Mrs Edelstein could not abide uncleanliness of any kind, and Mr Edelstein seemed to be vaguely displeased with everything), although what really captivated Vash’s attention was the answer to his final question from yesterday.

 

_Am I happy? Well I suppose I am, most of the time. I mean, I have bad days sometimes and maybe I’ll mess something up or have difficulty with something and my mood will be a little soured, but for the most part, I’m happy. Well, happy as in the opposite to “sad”. I’m never sad, but I suppose technically happy is rarely my dominant emotion. I’m content, really, that would be the word. There’s nothing wrong with my life – it’s really quite great with having such a big home and being rich and secure and having nice food and all that stuff that they’re always telling me to be grateful for because most people don’t have them, but actually, I’m really bored. All the time. Being homeschooled means I can theoretically get all of my schooling done before lunch and then just lie around for hours and hours, playing my violin for an hour or so and just generally doing nothing. I know I’m complaining about a lifestyle some people would kill to have but I just want to do things for once._

_But I’m ok, Vash. I’m not sad._

 

Vash frowned down at the paper, his eyes flickering over Roderich’s carefully formed, ornate letters. “You’re supposed to be happy, dammit,” he muttered to himself. He wasn’t quite sure why Roderich’s feeling of dissatisfaction annoyed him so much. It wasn’t the attitude itself that annoyed him – on the contrary, he felt a great deal of empathy toward his neighbour – but rather that it was happening to Roderich. Bad things weren’t supposed to happen to Roderich, and neither were things that were not strictly “bad” but certainly weren’t good either. Roderich’s life was supposed to be good and lovely, and he was supposed to be happy. That was how it had to be.

 

Vash’s tired eyes shifted from the letter back to his desk, regarding all the clutter with distain. Somehow he couldn’t imagine Roderich even being near clutter, let alone creating it. He made a half-hearted move to start clearing some things away, but ended up only picking up the calendar. What was it Lilli had said?  _Two months until we finish. Two months until summer_.

 

That decided it. Vash was going to spend the summer with Roderich.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay wow it's been a while since I've posted a chapter! Sorry!
> 
> Miss Braginski is Ukraine, who is in her late teens and has a part-time job at the local preschool.
> 
> And as soon as I'd finished writing this I discovered BIG MISTAKE. I got so caught up in the simplicity of just having the Australian school system that I sort of gave Australian seasons to Europe. That is like the biggest mistake I have ever made in anything I have written ever. So yes, two months after Vash's August birthday is two months until summer... But I haven't actually mentioned any month names so we can just pretend this whole thing never happened.
> 
> Even though the birthdays are the same distance apart as they are in canon.
> 
> :\ oops


	13. The Most Informal Graduation of All Time

 

The last day of primary school is rarely a productive one, especially in the small schools of small towns. Half the teachers didn’t bother showing up, let alone the students. However, Mr Honda arrived on time, as always, fully prepared to fill his class with as much final knowledge as possible. Never mind that his class consisted of little more than Elli, Vash, Francis and Gilbert, with about three other people who Vash had never really bothered getting to know. The seven students, having expected a wonderfully lazy day, resigned themselves to the monotonous tones of Mr Honda as he droned on about things they wouldn’t remember in five minutes. Vash recalled at one point the teacher had suddenly gotten very serious about something to do with triangles, stressing they would need to know whatever it was for high school, but later had no idea what the actual facts had been.

 

He and his friends had all decided to sit together instead of their usual desks and, looking at them, he could tell that they were focusing even less than he was. Elli was very focused on drawing something inside the front cover of her notebook, Francis was texting someone, and Gilbert’s eyes were wholly glazed over, staring off into the distance. Vash contented himself with attempting to balance pencils on his face again.

 

The day was an odd one, with two of the unknowns just wandering off in the middle of lunch not to return to class and Vash not remembering most of it. Not that anything was particularly memorable, of course, and the weather certainly didn’t help. It was a hot, sunny day, with a relentlessly blue sky, the sort of weather that was enchanting in its perfection. Vash found himself lost in a sunny daze several times throughout the day, and he suspected his friends had spent most of it in a similar state. At one point he fell into a mental soliloquy focusing on the unknown that hadn’t run off. A girl of Asian descent, straight-backed and focused although with tired eyes, long black hair tied back neatly yet obviously with little care. Vash knew her name, it was hidden somewhere in the back of his mind, but he simply couldn’t be bothered to dredge it up. He supposed it should probably worry him how little he cared about this girl considering they would probably only rarely cross paths ever again, but it didn’t. Not that it was the sort of day to be accepting final truths, ironically enough. Everyone was too tired, too eager for the eventual freedom of summer, to think too deeply. Besides, little towns of outdated social structures and neatly-tended gardens never really seemed to have any major change or final goodbyes. Everyone eventually ran into everyone else again and the world kept on turning; those old ladies chatting outside the greengrocer went to school together and Vash knew his boss was probably sitting in somewhere else in the school at that very moment.

 

The end of primary school did not feel like an end. It was not the great milestone their parents had been pumping them up for, not worth, in Vash’s opinion, the photo taken that morning of him in his uniform for the last time. And so the final parting of the ways of the four compatriots, the inevitable division of Vash’s little gang, did not occur that afternoon. Indeed, they approached the school gates in the usual sort of formless, blob-formation friends usually travel in, passed through it with no pomp or circumstance whatsoever and continued all in the same direction.  They were talking; Vash recalled that much, although the topic later eluded him. They weren’t talking about the future – he remembered that quite distinctly. High school, driving, university, careers and the various other facets of teenage life as told by twelve-year-olds had suddenly become taboo. Later, months later, Vash would recall that the future was hardly ever spoken of in a magnitude greater than a few weeks and conversation had mainly been relegated to pointless chatter.

 

The houses slipped by as they took turns telling vaguely interesting anecdotes barely connected to each other. Francis nattered on about some shirt which was apparently the greatest article of clothing ever created, Elli ranted about her overbearing family and their ridiculous habits, Gilbert spouted an expanded version of his aristocrat-vampires conspiracy theory that he swore would make the perfect novel and Vash found himself recalling one of the several trips he and his family had taken to the nearest city. The trip had been nothing exceptional: a train ride, shopping, lunch, a large park, the river, and another train ride – he just liked remembering it. The others didn’t seem to mind his prattle, though. He suspected they weren’t listening, but he didn’t mind. He hadn’t been listening to their stories much, either. It wasn’t really a day for listening.

 

There had been no official discussion as to where they were headed; just an agreement formed the day before that they would indeed spend the afternoon together. They ended up on Vash’s street somehow, which was odd as it was a small cul-de-sac meeting no sidestreets and ending in a park. He knew that Elli’s house lay somewhere behind the park, but for all intents and purposes it was a permanent boundary. Still, he didn’t question how they got there. He was pretty sure that even the others weren’t sure where they were going.

 

The street itself was quintessential of one on the Edge, all of it originally belonging to the estate house, the road itself having once been a driveway. The lands had been divided up, small cottages built upon and guesthouses renovated after WWII and the dissolution of the Empire, but the area retained its stately air, all of it unmistakeable in its aristocratic heritage.

 

They passed Vash’s house, and then Edelstein Manor, with everyone slowing just a bit, as if they could catch a glimpse of the Edelsteins in their native habitat. There was, as usual, no sign of them. Eventually, the street ended, but their walk did not. They continued on into the park, soft green grass of summer crushed beneath their feet and a flock of sparrows scattered into the air at their approach.

 

“Should’a brought the soccer ball,” said Gilbert as they traversed the park.

 

“Why?” asked Elli, grinning. “You so keen for me to kick your butt again?”

 

The two dissolved into bickering and rather creative insults, dropping behind Vash and Francis and leaving the two to talk.

 

“Any plans for the summer?” Francis asked, voice slightly raised above Elli and Gilbert’s argument.

 

“A few,” said Vash with a shrug.

 

“Any plans involving-”

 

Vash sighed. “Yes, before you ask, yes. I am going to hang out with Roderich.”

 

“Excellent!” cried Francis. “Tell me the full plan of action. What are you gonna do, where will you go, how many things are you gonna do, are you going with anyone else, will you go to the manor, will he go to your house, are you going into town, are you going _out_ of town, do you have any money to do things, _what are you going to say to him_!? You know Vash, you’re not exactly the most seductive person on the planet, how do you plan on luring this boy into your company? Quick! Practice your flirting on me!”

 

“Francis…”

 

“Terrible! You are truly the worst seducer this poor town has ever had to face! Flirt _harder_ , Vash!”

 

“Hey!”

 

Elli’s head popped up between the two boys. “What’s this about flirting?” she chirped.

 

Her argument with Gilbert had evidently ended and the two set about worming their way into the conversation.

 

“I’m with Franzi,” said Gilbert. “Vash is the literal worst at flirting.”

 

“You’re the literal worst at everything,” muttered Vash, brows twitching. “I’m not trying to seduce Roderich,” he said louder. “I just wanna spend some time with him this summer.”

 

“Perfect!” cried Elli. “Tell me everything! What are you doing, where are you going, when are you doing it, how m-”

 

“I DON’T KNOW!” Vash yelled. “There is no plan, I don’t know what I wanna do with him, I just had this idea that he needed to get out of the house more and I wanted to do something with him but I don’t know what, ok?”

 

“Sorry,” said Elli and Francis simultaneously.

 

Vash dismissed the apology with a flap of his hand. “It’s fine, guys.” A sigh.

 

“Well,” said Elli, a smile quickly taking over her face, “If you need some help…” Francis winked and Gilbert began to wiggle his eyebrows.

 

With a sniff, Vash rolled his eyes. “Honestly guys…” He stopped to think. “Actually, yeah. That would be helpful.”

 

Francis gave a chuckle that sounded rather overzealous to Vash. “Let’s get to it, then!”

 

***

 

The group found themselves beneath one of the huge, ancient trees that rimmed the park, Elli furiously drawing up some kind of list in her timetable.

 

“Right,” she said. “First we need to figure out what exactly it is you want to do.”

 

Vash shrugged. “Like I said, I’ve got no idea.”

 

The four were quiet in thought for a moment. “How about you ride bikes together?” suggested Francis.

 

Both Elli and Vash pulled a face. “I don’t know if Roderich can actually ride a bike,” said Elli.

 

“Yeah,” said Vash. “He practically never leaves the house. What if we just went for a walk?”

 

“ _Booooring_ ,” said Gilbert with a faux yawn.

 

“Yeah that is pretty boring,” said Francis flippantly, garnering a glower from Vash. “Why don’t you go into town?”

 

“His parents’d never let him,” replied Elli immediately.

 

“Oh yeah, damn,” said Vash. “How are we going to convince his parents to let him do anything? They’re insanely strict.”

 

“Oh yeah, they’re the kind that only socialise with other aristocrats, right?” Francis said.

 

“ _Worse_ ,” said Vash. “They barely talk to anyone, aristocracy notwithstanding.”

 

“These guys sound like a buncha jerks, what’s so great about this Roderich kid, anyway?” asked Gilbert.

 

“He missed out on the jerk-gene,” said Elli. “He’s a perfectly nice person, even if his family socialises with no one but mine. And- WAIT!” she cried, everyone turning to her. “I just had an idea!”

 

***

 

Saturday afternoon, exactly one day after the planning in the park, Vash watched from an upstairs window as Erzsébet Héderváry came down the road from the park and trotted up the Edelstein’s driveway. She looked cleaner than Vash had ever seen her before, hair drawn high into a tight ponytail, wearing a _dress_ of all things. Vash hadn’t even thought she’d seen a dress before, let alone worn one. He stayed at the window the whole time she was in the manor, craning his neck, trying to get a peek over the huge trees and ornate roofs. There was no sign of anyone.

 

It took half an hour for Elli to reappear, high ponytail swinging with each of her steps. Before she started to walk back up the street, she turned to Vash’s house and gave a great salute, ending in a bow. Even though he knew she couldn’t see him, Vash saluted back, a smile widening his mouth and lighting his eyes. Not too long after that, violin music started up.

 

Roderich was serious and deliberate as he played, as per the norm. Vash watched him silently through several pieces and smiled as Roderich handed him his letter, chatting of small things and school endings.

 

“Oh,” Vash said just as he was leaving, as if it wasn’t the fore thought in his mind. “I’m going over to Elli’s on Monday.”

 

He couldn’t help but mirror the grin that spread across Roderich’s face as he said, “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just have this weird love of aph vietnam ok she'll just show up in works I never expected to put her in.
> 
> I wanted this chapter to be longer but if I'd put all I wanted to in it would've been too long and it would've taken forever to write.


	14. Héderváry Kastély

 

That afternoon in the park, when Vash had asked Elli for her house address, she had merely replied with “It’s on the other side of this park, massive, and has my last name in huge letters above the gate. I’d be very impressed if you managed to miss it.” Vash had guessed this was hyperbole. Vash had guessed wrong.

 

Midmorning Monday, Vash set out across the park, backpack bumping against his shoulders. Edelstein Manor had been as still as ever when he passed it, although he’d expected no different. Roderich had been given a slightly later arrival time than Vash, Francis and Gilbert for the purpose of “preparation”, according to Elli. Vash was not looking forward to that.

 

The other side of the park was a cul-de-sac typical of Edge regions; short, quiet, and full of houses renovated from the grounds cottages of the local manor. Said manor, Héderváry Kastély, was just as easy to spot as Elli had promised. The grounds started right next to the park, much the same way Edelstein Manor adjoined the park’s other side. Unlike most of the other aristocratic houses Vash had seen, however, the grounds of the Kastély were incredibly open. Most of the grounds were covered with nothing more than wide green lawns, the few trees carefully placed in separate garden beds far from each other. The house itself was easy to spot, sitting in the centre of the property in all its big, blocky glory, surprisingly simple in design. A few steps more, and Vash discovered that Elli was serious about the gates – they really were crowned with her name wrought in iron. Despite the apparent benignity of Héderváry Kastély compared to other manors, an air of vague foreboding seemed to hang in the local air and Vash was forced to remember that the Hédervárys were still aristocrats, no matter how liberal they were with their daughter’s freedom.

 

The oversized, onymous gates were unlocked and swung open at Vash’s touch, inviting him up the long gravel drive. He felt oddly shrunken walking up to the house, hemmed in by low yet large flower bushes and surrounded by surprisingly open space. When approached from the front Héderváry Kastély was wonderfully imposing, its great square frame seeming to loom out at visitors and draw all attention no matter where you looked. Vash found it to be seriously disconcerting. He reached the great, wooden double doors of the house, and was surprisingly relieved to find scatterings of normal life on the tiles around it – discarded shoes, a welcome mat, an old umbrella, and a well-worn dog’s chew toy. The doorbell, however, was just as ornate as he had expected.

 

Elli threw open the door mere seconds after Vash rang the bell, dressed in shorts and a tank top, carrying an overexcited puppy. 

 

“Hi Vash.”

 

“Nice gates.”

 

She rolled her eyes and gave his arm a quick punch. “Gilbert and Francis are already here,” she said, leading him into the house. The inside of the Kastély was more intricate than he exterior, with beautifully carved, sweeping stairways, chandeliers, occasional mosaic floors and old portraits. But for the most part the furniture was quite modern, and rather boring. It looked like someone had taken the contents of a normal suburban house and thrown them into an 18th century mansion. The effect, Vash found, was rather jarring, but quite endearing, too.

 

“You can dump your stuff there,” Elli said, gesturing to a few bags clustered outside an interior door. “Did you bring your swimming stuff?”

 

“Yeah,” said Vash. “I still can’t believe you’ve got a pool just in your backyard.”

 

“Well there’s plenty of yard for it to go in,” laughed Elli as they entered the door. A rec room lay beyond, furnished with all manner of nonsense from a pool table to a huge television to an old lumpy couch and even, for some reason, hunting trophies from Hédervárys past. The puppy slipped from Elli’s hands and scampered to where Francis stood at the pool table, cue in hand. Gilbert was also at the pool table, positioned at one end with his head resting on the fuzzy green surface, mouth wide open.

 

“What the hell is that thing doing?” Elli asked, gesturing at Gilbert.

 

“It’s pool soccer,” announced Gilbert, not bothering to move his head. “My mouth’s the goal.”

 

“Care to join the bet, Vash?” asked Francis. “How many teeth do you reckon he’ll lose?”

 

Elli knuckled her forehead. “First you forget your swimsuit now this…”

 

Vash turned to Gilbert. “You forgot?” he asked.

 

Gilbert grinned and Francis laughed. “Yeah,” said Francis. “I’m gonna make him go in naked.”

 

“You will _not_!” cried Elli prompting a steady stream of laughter from the pool table. “Why are we friends with these morons?” Elli asked Vash, but there was a softness in her tone and expression that made Vash smile.

 

“So when’s Roderich coming?” Vash asked as Elli moved to shoo Gilbert off her pool table. “And what exactly do you plan on doing to me in the interim?”

 

Elli laughed. “Relax, Vash. He’ll be here in just over half an hour or so. And as for what we’re going to do to you – this is your social training time.”

 

“Oh joy,” muttered Vash. “What, are you gonna tell me what to say?”

 

Elli raised her eyebrows and turned to Francis. Chuckling, Francis spent an inordinate amount of time positioning his cue and ignoring Vash’s question, only to manage to not even hit the cue ball at all. Now considerably miffed, he finally answered.

 

“Mainly we’re trying to de-awkward you as much as possible.”

 

Vash crossed his arms. “I do _not_ need de-awkwarding! I’ve been friends with Roderich for a long time and I was never so awkward I scared him off or he didn’t want to talk to me! Why do you think today will be any different?”

 

“Because today, Vash, you’re not on the Edge,” said Elli firmly. “Think, have you even been in the same building as Roderich before?” Vash faltered, his arms slipping from their defiant position. “I’m sure you two are fine when you’re just talking to each other over that fence but knowing you, you’re going to freak the moment you throw anyone else into the equation.”

 

Vash thought back to when Lilli had blundered in on one of his conversations and was forced to accept Elli’s point.

 

“So,” he said. “What’s the plan?”

 

Both Elli and Francis opened their mouths wide, but before any plan could be spoken they were interrupted by a shout from elsewhere in the house.

 

“Erzsi!” A woman’s voice, harried and slightly accented. Vash guessed it was Elli’s mother. “How many more are coming?”

 

Sure enough a woman unmistakable in her resemblance to Elli popped her head around the door seconds later.

 

“We’re only waiting on Roderich now,” said Elli.

 

Mrs Héderváry’s eyes ran across the room, taking in the three visitors and her daughter with a gaze firm, powerful, and practiced. She moved to herd her daughter away for the boys, who all pretended not to listen when they began talking.

 

“Is Roderich the only..?” Elli reacted to this question much like a threatened bird, drawing her shoulders up and scowling.

 

“Does it matter?” Her reply was deliberately loud and as she spoke she looked to her friends. They were sucked into the conversation now, cutting off any future classist remarks from Mrs Héderváry. While he though it a rather sound strategy of influence, Vash couldn’t help but feel painfully awkward.

 

“Why not invite more people? It’ll be more fun and you’ll be able to do more!” Then the voice was lowered once more to the mode of private conversation. “I just want you to have a wide circle of friends.”

 

Elli’s response was inevitable. “I _have_ a wide circle of friends,” she said, smiling at her own joke as she gestured to the boys with a sweeping, grandiose gesture.

 

“Just one more person?”

 

Mrs Héderváry’s voice was not unkind and Vash could see Elli thinking it through – wondering if this was the compromise she would have to take. He found himself wondering how often Elli was pestered, and how often she had to make these decisions. He certainly didn’t envy her.

 

“Call Arthur,” Francis piped up. That wasn’t such a bad idea, and Vash could see Elli thinking the same thing. But it brought a smile to Mrs Héderváry’s face, so her daughter was forced into a token scowl.

 

“It’s such short notice,” Elli said. “Wouldn’t it be weird?”

 

“Not at all dear,” said her mother. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to come.” And then she bustled out, almost tripping over the puppy on her way. Elli wasted no time in digging her phone out from her pocket and calling Arthur, muttering angrily the whole way. Vash and Francis, feeling the need to look away, shared a glance of disbelief and concern across the room.

 

Elli’s conversation with Arthur was short and very blunt. “I’m having some people over and my mum wants a token rich kid. Apparently Roderich Edelstein isn’t enough, can you come over?” She tapped her foot as she listened to Arthur’s reply. “Just Vash, Gilbert and Francis,” she said a few moments later, winking at Francis. A few mutterings of “yeah, no… eh, right now. Yeah sure,” and the conversation ended.

 

“Is he coming?” asked Francis.

 

“Of course he’s coming,” said Elli. “Not like he has a life of his own.” She sighed. “Sorry about all that.”

 

“Do you know Arthur, then?” asked Vash, attempting to lighten the conversation.

 

“I know all the aristocrat kids,” Elli said in a voice thick with false bravado. “Arthur’s alright.” 

 

Everyone turned to Francis. “Don’t think you can wheedle me into defending and then overdramatically declaring my love for Arthur,” he said haughtily. “That’s Vash’s roll today.”

 

Vash winced as his brief respite from being the centre of attention ended. “Alright fine,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

 

***

 

“Your shortcomings,” Elli announced, pacing along one side of the pool table, “as we already have established, is that you have wider ideas, but lack the fine details that actually make up these ideas.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Vash.

 

Elli didn’t seem to notice him. “Take, for example, the very reason we are here today. You wanted to spend time with Roderich in the summer holidays. A noble pursuit – but you had absolutely no idea what it was you actually wanted to do. My hypothesis is that-”

 

“Did she swallow a dictionary?” Gilbert asked.

 

“ _My hypothesis is such_ : I believe you suck at conversation.”

 

“I do not!” Vash replied instantly. “Besides, you’ve known me for a long time; you don’t need to _hypothesise_ on my social abilities.”

 

“Ok,” said Elli. “It is a pre-established fact that you suck at conversation and thus-”

 

“I am a good conversationalist!”

 

Elli raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?” she said. “When Roderich arrives, what are you going to talk to him about?”

 

Vash opened his mouth, choked out a single, nonsensical syllable, and then opened and closed his mouth like a stunned fish for a while. Eventually he managed a very uncertain, “…Your house?”

 

More eyebrows were raised, Gilbert and Francis joining in this time. “Yeah, I’m sure two twelve-year-old boys will be able to talk about 18th century architecture for hours on end,” said Elli. “Come on, Vash, think!”

 

“I, uh…” Vash absently rapped the side of his head with his knuckles as he tried to think. What did he normally speak to Roderich about? Well that was just the problem, wasn’t it? He _wasn’t_ good at speaking with Roderich – that’s why he’d come up with the idea of writing letters. When he wrote, he had time to collect his thoughts, decide what was interesting, what was weird, what he couldn’t word properly and what he wanted to hear Roderich’s thoughts on. When he actually talked to him though… Now that was a mess nobody would want to clean up.

 

In truth he was scared, more scared than he knew, of speaking to Roderich. Roderich was interesting, nice, sincere, and – in Vash’s eyes – perfect. _He’s like some incredible flower,_ Vash thought. _That can also play the violin and say things that give this beautiful glowing happiness and-_ The point, clumsy metaphor aside, was that Vash wanted Roderich to stay safe and happy and protected forever. To him, saying something weird or awkward was akin to stepping on that eloquent, violinist flower and Vash just couldn’t bear the idea of making Roderich unhappy.

 

“I don’t know, I never know! I thought we’d figured that out by now – why do you constantly have to rub in in my face?! _Just tell me what to say_!” The words, and their volume, were just as much of a surprise to him as they were to the others.

 

 “Vash,” said Francis, startling his friend with how genuine and quiet his voice was. “We just want you to be happy with Roderich. I suppose we haven’t really acted like that – too many jokes – but that’s what today is supposed to be: you hanging out with Roderich without having to worry about the Edge or that fence or any of the usual crap that divides you. But if you don’t feel-”

 

“It’s my fault,” said Vash, wincing as he cut across Francis, but really, he simply had to speak. “I was the one who snapped. You lot have just been so nice and helpful to me and all I do is get nervous and yell at you… Honestly I don’t know why you’re friends with me, but I really appreciate it.”

 

“Hey, if you can put up with whatever the hell I am, I can deal with a little crankiness,” said Gilbert. Vash let out a quick laugh that was more an expulsion of pressure than anything else.

 

“You’re not that bad,” said Francis. “I mean, I’ve seen worse. Not too many but, you know… some.” He winked and Vash felt actual amusement begin to bubble inside him.

 

“You’re one of my all-time favourite losers, Vash. Right up there in the top ten,” Elli said. “Even if you do suck at conversation.”

 

Vash was really laughing now – even though nothing was actually funny. He was just genuinely happy. Somehow he was suddenly enfolded in a rather awkward group hug and he was suddenly incredibly grateful. His friends dealt with so much of his emotional nonsense and helped him out so much… He would definitely have to make it up to them somehow. Especially Elli, what with her hosting this ridiculous get-together and having to invite Arthur as well, just so he could spend some time with Roderich outside of the usual setting.

 

Speak of the devil, Elli was suddenly talking again.

 

“Come on guys, I’ll show you around the house. The full Kastély tour!”

 

***

 

The full Kastély tour dissolved into a game of Hide-and-Seek incredibly quickly. It was simply built for the game. _Old houses are so intricate_ , Vash found himself thinking as he searched the ground floor for his friends. _So many nooks and crannies – there’s no way there was a practical use for all of these little closets and hidden staircases_. He was It now, having been discovered the last round by one other than Elli’s puppy.

 

“A ruthless hunter,” Elli had announced as the dog licked her face. “Just like his forbearers.”

 

_Even their pets have noble heritage_ , Vash had thought and now, as he walked down a corridor lined with old portraits, he couldn’t help but wonder about the Hédervárys. They let their daughter go to public school and make friends with the local kids, but if they visited her house, she was required to invite aristocrat kids too. They kept modern furniture in their house, but left old portraits and hunting trophies up. They knew the prestigious bloodline of their dog but their grounds were welcoming and their gate unlocked. But most of all, they had stayed here when all their family had rooted up and returned to Hungary.

 

_Mixed signals galore_ , thought Vash as he found himself suddenly in the entrance foyer. He shouldn’t have cared, but he did. Elli was getting all sorts of messed up while her family debated which side of the Edge it was going to ally with. But no, it wasn’t his business how the Hédervárys lived their lives, his business was currently Hide-and-Seek. He had to find his friends, and to do that he had to-

 

The doorbell rang.

 

-had to answer the door, apparently.

 

“I’ll get it!” he called out. He was standing right by the door, anyway.

 

As he reached for the handle, however, he felt his heart begin to increase in speed. It was either Arthur or Roderich waiting on the other side of the door and either way an awkward conversation would follow. Ah, what the hell. He was Vash Zwingli – all of his conversations were awkward.

 

The door was big, wooden and heavy, and hence very satisfying to wrench open with a great deal of force. But it wasn’t the door – as great as it was – that brought a smile to Vash’s face. No, that privilege belonged, as usual, to the boy waiting on the other side.

 

“Hi Vash,” said Roderich.

 

Vash had no idea what to say. But that was okay now – everything was okay now. He and Roderich were going to hang out like normal friends, and not just today but for the rest of the summer. More plans would be hatched, more excuses fed to Mr and Mrs Edelstein so they would let their son go out. Everything was going to work out just fine, no matter what nonsense he said now.

 

“We’re playing Hide-and-Seek.” Not too bad actually.

 

“Sounds fun!”

 

And the summer began. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was supposed to have more in it but then it would be too big and so I split it in half. I just realised I haven't had Vash and Roderich interacting that much in the past few chapters but don't worry that is literally all of the next one.
> 
> And I will be going to Germany and Austria on exchange on the 14th of September and staying there until mid October so all signs point to no updates in that period of time. But Chapter 15 will be up before I go, I promise!


	15. A Day at the Kastély

 

Elli, having heard the door, appeared in the entrance foyer moments later with a smile for Roderich and a supposedly-subtle wink for Vash.

 

“We’re playing Hide-and-Seek,” she announced, “but we’re just about to finish.” Before Vash could tell her Roderich was already informed of the hiding and seeking, or ask her what she meant by finishing, her foot shot out and kicked the bottom of a nearby curtain, eliciting two, simultaneous yelps of pain.

 

“Curtains are such a cliché hiding spot,” she chided Gilbert and Francis as they emerged from behind the heavy fabric.

 

“But you couldn’t even see our feet under this one!” said Francis. “I thought it was a good hiding spot!”

 

“Yeah but curtains aren’t usually that lumpy,” said Elli. Gilbert gave her a scowl, and then turned to look at the new arrival standing behind her.

 

“Hi nerd,” he said with surprising pleasantness.

 

Roderich gave Vash a quick glance of confusion and worry, the question of _how am I supposed to respond to this_ emblazoned across his face. Vash was suddenly filled with an incredible protective desire to leap to Roderich’s defence  and quash Gilbert’s comment with a  dazzling retort. Dazzling retorts, however, were hardly Vash’s area of expertise and he found himself simultaneously flooded with comebacks, and stuck for words. He managed to raise his shoulders in a token gesture of defiance, but Elli was already in control of the situation.

 

“Oh shut up, Gilbert,” she said. “You’re the biggest dork in the room and you know it.”

 

 _They’re good friends_ , Vash reminded himself. _Roderich and Elli are friends. Of course she’d defend him, too. Besides, it’s better to step down than make a fool of myself in front of Roderich_.

 

Francis was laughing and Roderich looked as if he was deciding whether or not to be offended when Gilbert, trying to look nonchalant, asked what they were going to do next.

 

“I dunno,” said Elli. “What do you guys want to do?”

 

“Go swimming?” asked Vash.

 

“But Arthur isn’t here yet!” Francis cried, prompting Vash, Elli and Gilbert to roll their eyes, and Roderich to look imploringly at Elli.  

 

“Arthur’s coming?”

 

“Rich kid quota.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Vash watched how the two communicated with such ease and felt more than a slight twinge of jealousy. Not so much jealousy for Roderich’s attention but for the sheer comfort inherent in their relationship. _You’re being ridiculous_ , he reminded himself. _Their friendship is completely different to whatever it is you have with Roderich. They’ve been friends practically since birth and he played violin near your fence._

 

Somehow this was not as comforting as Vash had expected.

 

“Hey don’t you have a dartboard?” Gilbert asked Elli.

 

“There is literally only one way putting you near sharp projectiles will end,” she replied. “And I don’t think we have enough bandages in the house.”

 

“We could play actual pool,” said Vash. “Instead of whatever the hell those two were doing on the table when I arrived.”

 

The group immediately fell into noises of agreement and teasing but despite the happy clamour, Vash did not fail to miss the small chuckle that his comment brought from Roderich. As the group began to return to the rec room, the two neighbours walked together.

 

“What were they doing?” Roderich asked quietly, a small smile on his lips.

 

“Well they were… They had invented this weird new game called ‘pool soccer’. Basically it was just a way for Francis to knock all of Gilbert’s teeth out of his head – he was using his mouth as… a goal, or something. I think Francis was supposed to shoot the balls into his mouth instead of the pockets of the table… Gilbert had his head at the end of the table and his mouth was wide open and I’m pretty sure that was what they were doing. And… uh…” Vash sure couldn’t concentrate with Roderich looking at him with such genuine interest. “I cant explain it, it was just really weird to walk in and see Gilbert lying over the table and Francis holding a big stick.”

 

They had reached the rec room by then, but paused by the door as Vash waited for Roderich’s response. It would have been polite for the other three kids to at least pretend to not be watching them, but to them that would of course completely ruin the point of the day. And so it was in full view of their friends that Vash and Roderich stood in the doorway of Elli’s rec room and collapsed into laughter.

 

 _Isn’t Roderich’s laugh fantastic?_ Vash wanted to say. _Everybody look at Roderich, he’s amazing and has a great laugh and I was the one who made him laugh! Look at this amazing boy he plays violin for me and he thinks our friends are weird too but we have friends together how great is that and we’re going to spend the summer together and everything is going to be perfect_.

 

But of course, saying any of that aloud would just be bizarre and awkward so Vash settled for making his way to the pool table while trying not to look anyone in the eye.

 

The game of pool progressed with relative normality, especially considering Francis and Elli were the only ones with any semblance of an idea of what the rules were and couldn’t agree on a single point. Neither Vash nor Roderich knew how to hold a pool cue but nonetheless tried to teach each other, and Gilbert – incredibly – managed to escape mostly unharmed, apart from getting his feet entangled around Elli’s puppy and falling over. Still, no lost teeth, and his cue-joust had been vetoed quickly despite enthusiasm from Francis.

 

“I just think it would be a good idea,” Francis was saying as the doorbell sounded in the distance.

 

“How on Earth could it possibly be a good idea?” replied Elli as her mother called from elsewhere in the Kastély that she would answer the door. “Giving you and Gilbert large sticks and telling you to hit things is a death sentence for everyone in the room!”

 

“Yeah, I’m going to have to agree with you on that one,” said Roderich.

 

“Don’t you trust us?” asked Gilbert.

 

Roderich looked awkwardly off to one side, Elli seemed as if she was searching for a way to crush his dreams politely and Vash just gave a blunt, “No.”

 

“Aw, come on you guys,” said Gilbert.

 

“Yeah,” said Francis. “I promise to be very good with my stick.”

 

“Now that’s an interesting pledge.”

 

Arthur Kirkland had arrived, and Vash took great pleasure in not being the one in the room furiously blushing.

 

 A chorus of “Hi, Arthur”s followed, Francis’s arriving slightly late and thick with mortification. Arthur, who may not have been a particularly tactful young man but could at least act like one, made no comment on Francis’s discomfort and simply picked up a cue.

 

“We’re playing pool, I presume?”

 

“Well we were,” said Elli. “But right now these two are campaigning for a cue-joust.”

 

Arthur’s eyes flickered around the five other kids in the room “What’s cue-jousting?”

 

“Less dangerous than pool-soccer,” announced Gilbert with a good deal of pride.

 

“What’s-”

 

“Do you really want to know?” butted in Francis.

 

Arthur opened his mouth, seemed to realise something, and then said “Not really.”

 

“Let’s just have a vote,” said Elli. “All those in favour of the cue-joust, raise your hand.”

 

Gilbert’s hand was in the air before Elli was halfway done with her sentence, while Francis’s hand hovered somewhere around the side of his head as he glanced at his friends’ faces.

 

“No joust,” said Elli.

 

“What a shame,” said Vash quietly, making Roderich snicker under his breath. _Perfect_.

 

The game of pool went on for another hour or so, becoming more and more complex as Arthur also claimed to know the rules yet, of course, did not agree with Francis or Elli on any of them. While the arguments raged, Gilbert amused himself by being trampled upon by Elli’s puppy, and Vash and Roderich simply sat on the couch together. Most often they did not say anything – it would have most likely been lost in the cacophony – merely sat side-by-side. For some reason being beside Roderich felt a thousand times better when there was no fence between them, even though their fence was purely decorative and probably easy to surmount if you put enough effort into it. But to Vash and Roderich, neither particularly built for surmounting fences, the couch was a haven.

 

Around midday, Mrs Héderváry bustled into the rec room carrying a huge basket of food and demanded that since it was such a nice day, they all go outside to have a picnic on the grounds. There was little argument.

 

“Your grounds are so much nicer than mine,” said Arthur as the group skirted Elli’s swimming pool. “Ours is much darker and enclosed.”

 

“You should see mine,” said Roderich. “What isn’t courtyards is dense forest.”

 

“At least its not as weird as the Braginksis’,” said Elli, which for some reason prompted Arthur and Roderich to laugh.

 

Vash looked to Francis, who simply shrugged and mouthed “Aristocrats.”

           

Their picnic spot was soon chosen – Elli had recommended the base of an oak tree atop a single, low hill far out the back of the property and the others had agreed. As they set up, Vash had to wonder at how Francis seemed so unfazed by the huge differences between him and Arthur. Any reminder of the class gap between him and Roderich would always make Vash wince in the least and get him bizarrely angry at the worst.  But, he supposed, perhaps that was just Francis. He could get so melodramatically over-reactive sometimes, but it was very rare for something to actually bother him. Vash made a mental note to ask him his secret at a later time, and reminded himself that today was not for fretting over relationships, but for simply enjoying them.

 

Elli’s mother had certainly gone all out with the picnic fare, having made several large pies and a platoon of sandwiches, packed enough packets of chips to feed an army and baked an entire cake. Conversation was at a minimum for quite a while, as the food was as delicious as it was plentiful.

 

“My Great-Aunt Maggie probably made most of this, not my mum,” Vash heard Elli say at one point. “You can tell because it’s actually good.”  Good-natured laughter followed and Vash found himself surprisingly at ease. Perhaps having Roderich sitting so close to him should have made him nervous, and perhaps he should have been fretting about not understand aristocratic in-jokes and how that separated him from Roderich just as much as the fence did – but he wasn’t. Somehow he was actually starting to follow the ideal of having today to simply enjoy his relationship with Roderich, and not worry about it. It was incredibly relaxing.

 

With the pool within eyesight it was inevitably brought up as the next activity, particularly by Gilbert.

 

“Aren’t you supposed to wait for a bit after eating before you go swimming or else you get really sick or something?” asked Francis.

 

“I thought that was just one of those old wives’ tales things,” said Gilbert.

 

“Whether or not its true, I would still like to wait until my stomach settles until I go for a swim,” announced Arthur.

 

“You are an eighty-year-old woman I swear,” said Francis with an affectionate shake of the head. Arthur responded by shoving him down the hill, which in turn was met with a long stream of French insults. Vash and Roderich couldn’t help but share a bemused glance.

 

The argument as to whether or not they should wait before swimming – coupled with a general, lethargic reluctance to stand up – manage to last the duration of what Arthur deemed an “appropriate waiting period”.

 

“See, the lesson here is if you complain and argue about something long enough, it’ll just solve itself!” crowed Gilbert as they wandered back to the house.

 

“Sounds like Vash’s method of dealing with problems,” said Elli, giving the accused a light knock with her elbow.

 

“Hey!” Vash barked, and then told her in a much quieter voice, “I’m getting better.”

 

“Yes,” she smiled. “You are.”

 

As they returned to the house, the problem of Gilbert’s lack of swimsuit resurfaced.

 

“I told you,” Francis was saying, “we can just throw him in naked!”

 

“And I told _you_ , not in a million years!”  

 

“Well does anyone have a spare, then?” asked Arthur.

 

“Who brings extra swimmers?” muttered Vash.

 

No one, of course, had a spare except for Elli and while Francis did joke about putting Gilbert in a bikini, there was no actual solution to be found.

 

“You’ll just have to sit out, then,” said Elli. “That’s what you get for forgetting.”

 

Gilbert began some huge spiel on how he was going to steal someone else’s swimmers and how swimming was stupid anyway and how awesome the deckchairs were compared to the pool, and continued ranting long after everyone had returned to the house to get changed.

 

The Kastély certainly had no shortage of bathrooms, with there being enough for all five kids to change on the ground floor alone. According to Elli, there were fourteen in total throughout the manor and Vash had to wonder what four people were expected to do with fourteen bathrooms. The one he ended up in was larger than any he had seen before, with a huge spa bath, separate shower, toilet and a long row of sinks. As he pulled on his green rash-shirt and generic silver boardshorts he wondered at the placement of this massive bathroom, as it was nowhere near any bedrooms, or even the laundry. Then again, Arthur Kirkland had gotten lost in his own house, so perhaps aristocratic residents were required to have confusing layouts.

 

He met the others at the edge of the pool, facing away from the house and out onto the sprawling grounds of the Kastély. They stood in a row, Arthur, Francis, Vash, Roderich, Eli and then Gilbert, silently daring each other to jump in first. Elli, in black swimsuit and boardshorts, stood with her hands on her hips and considered the water. Arthur was tugging awkwardly at his white rash-shirt while Francis stood with his arms crossed over his bare chest and looked at the water with only a vague interest, eyes often flickering to Arthur. Gilbert, still in his denim shorts and ill-fitting muscle shirt, was for once not talking, and instead of watching the water like most of the others stared out onto the grounds of the Kastély and beyond. Roderich had removed his glasses when he’d put on his matching navy and gold rash-shirt and boardshorts, making him squint slightly as he watched the water. Vash could see those impossible, indigo eyes flickering across the surface of the water, watching the way the light danced back and forth. And Vash, when he wasn’t glancing at Roderich, watched the water only because the others did. He had no actual interest in swimming – to him it was all simply the backdrop of his meeting with Roderich, the motions he had to go through for them to spend time together. Still, he wasn’t completely averse to swimming – while he wasn’t skilled by any stretch of the imagination it wasn’t a bad way to kill time. _Perhaps_ , he thought, _I should jump in, just so everyone can get on with it_.

 

And then Gilbert got there first

 

 “If you lot of prissy cowards don’t have the guts to jump in, I guess I’ll just have to show you how it’s done!” he crowed, puffing out his chest and preparing to jump.

 

Roderich and Arthur began to gabble about ruined clothes, while Elli insulted his intelligence and Francis egged him on. Vash said nothing, not even when Gilbert did leap into the turquoise abyss, as it didn’t really matter. Gilbert would still be Gilbert even when soaked to the bone and a sopping-wet walk of shame back home would do nothing to deter him from further poorly planned shenanigans. And, just as he had expected, no one had any real criticisms for Gilbert once he was actually in the pool, only dumb jokes and poorly-concealed wishes to join him.

 

They all ended up in the pool sooner or later, most of them expressing surprise at how warm it was, or complementing its ample size or colour. Elli seemed to pull several huge floatation toys from absolutely nowhere which ended with Gilbert and Arthur attempting to share a giant inflatable dragon but eventually just bickering about who got to sit up the front. Francis seemed happy enough to spend most of his time underwater, going almost the breadth of the pool without resurfacing – and Elli was quite resplendent astride her great steed of an inflatable duck. Roderich did not enter the pool fully, and merely sat on the edge, dangling his feet in the water. Vash, despite being in the pool proper, stuck by his side.

 

“Don’t like swimming?” he asked Roderich awkwardly, after a few minutes of quiet conversation.

 

“I’m not very good at it,” he said, looking somewhere behind Vash. “I mean, I never really had much of a reason to learn. I’m not going to _drown_ or anything, it’s just rather difficult.” Roderich, Vash could see now, had been watching Francis once again swimming underwater.

 

Vash’s reply came to him in an urgent rush to reassure his neighbour. “I’m the same. I had to learn for school but I haven’t been swimming in so long I’m just… yeah.”

 

While Vash was annoyed at how poorly he had ended his sentence, Roderich was nodding.

 

“My family has a pool,” the young aristocrat blurted rather suddenly. “It’s underground, beneath the house, and we hardly use it. I don’t know why so many of the aristocrat houses have them. I know all of us barely use them.”

 

It was Vash’s turn to nod, even though he had absolutely no previous knowledge of aristocratic swimming habits.

 

“I guess it’s just so they can say they have a pool,” he mused as Gilbert climbed off his dragon and out of the pool. “Like a boasting thing.”

 

The task of nodding now fell to Roderich. “It’s weird though, because the only people they boast to are other aristocrats, and they all have pools.”

 

Vash added a shrug to his nodding. “I suppose it’s so they’re not the one aristocratic family without a pool.”

 

Roderich hadn’t even bothered to stop nodding. “That makes sense.” He paused. “But it also doesn’t. Why does it even matter if you’re the one aristocratic family without a pool? Everyone else may have one, but they don’t use them. And they’re not so rude as to refuse to associate with someone on the sole basis of ownership of a pool; they care so little, I have been invited to swim in the pools’ of other aristocrats even though I _have_ one. It’s really pointless, actually,” he said, as if the statement was the answer to a question he had been looking for for ages. “It all is.”

 

Behind him, Gilbert seemed to be having some kind of mimed argument with the kids behind Vash, but Vash did not want to turn and see what was going on for Roderich was looking at him. Even when hidden behind glasses and going about their daily business Roderich’s indigo eyes could make Vash’s heart momentarily forget to beat. When they stared into his own, searching for a response and full of profound emotion that not even Roderich fully comprehended, they were unlike anything Vash had ever experienced.

 

“Right?”

 

It took Vash a moment to remember what Roderich was asking confirmation for.

 

“Yeah.” And then, with more conviction, “Yeah. It is pointless.” Gilbert was still miming angry behind Roderich. “Technically we don’t even have an aristocratic class any more; they’re just rich people in houses they got from their dead grandparents. Why would their pools matter?”

 

“They don’t matter,” said Roderich. “They don’t matter at all. It’s all so weird – why do we even have things like home-schooled aristocrats and the Edge anymore? They should have been gone a long time ago. They just-”

 

But Roderich’s next sentiment was cut brutally short by Francis crying, “Just push him!” and Gilbert complying.

 

With a mighty shove to the shoulders, Gilbert sent Roderich sprawling into the pool as from behind Vash came laughter, cries of outrage and bickering. Afraid Roderich would hit him and injure one of them, Vash instantly retreated below water, kicking off from the wall to give the falling aristocrat as much room as he could.  There was a dull rushing boom as Roderich hit the water face-first and Vash felt a twinge of empathy for the pain to Roderich’s face that surely would have caused. He couldn’t see a thing what with his lack of goggles and the billowing bubbles that surrounded the impact, but Vash knew for certain that Roderich had just landed in front of him. For a second or two they stayed beneath the water as the bubbles and the boom faded away, entrapped in an oddly tranquil world. Vash found himself wishing he was like Francis and could stay underwater for long stretches of time, that he could stay with Roderich in the silent blue world of Elli’s pool. But he was running out of air, his body was fighting to return to the surface, and his brain was remembering how paltry his swimming skills were, and so reluctantly did Vash Zwingli float back to the surface and re-enter the world of noise.

 

He was thoroughly confused to begin with, for he was hit by the argument after it had already begun and everyone around him had changed position. Elli had dismounted her duck and was rushing to help Roderich out of the water, Francis was suddenly bobbing right next to Vash, and Gilbert was in the process of edging away from the pool. Arthur, however, was still on his dragon and was watching the commotion from afar with a startled eye.

 

“Roderich are you okay?” Elli was yelling as the sopping aristocrat resurfaced. While he was thrashing about rather violently, Roderich was also nodding. Once she’d helped him grab a hold of the pool’s edge, Elli left Roderich’s side and whirled on Gilbert. The two started up a huge argument but Vash wasn’t paying attention. As fast as he could, he climbed up and out of the pool, then moved around to help Roderich out.

 

“I think you should stay away from the pool for a bit,” said Vash, eyeing the loudly arguing Gilbert and Elli, both of whom were gesturing to Roderich.

 

“Good idea.” And the two moved over to the deckchairs.

 

They sat in silence for a while, having only a single, small conversation.

 

“There’s water in my ears.”

 

“That’d feel gross.”

 

“It does.”

 

Gilbert and Elli’s argument fizzled out in time, the two still clearly very mad at each other, mainly because Francis had stolen Gilbert’s spot on Arthur’s dragon. Elli, like Vash and Roderich, watched the three boys bicker over the great inflatable beast for a while. Eventually she jumped back into the pool, but Vash noticed that for the most part she stayed away from the boys, choosing instead to simply swim laps.

 

The afternoon wore on slowly, the dragon changing hands several thousand times over – Arthur and Francis, Arthur and Gilbert, Gilbert and Francis (this arrangement involved quite a few screams of “Mutiny!” from a displaced Arthur), Gilbert and Elli, Elli and Arthur (by far the most mature arrangement, and hence doomed to failure), Elli and Arthur on the dragon and Gilbert and Francis as ‘pirates’ on the duck, everyone as pirates except with different ‘ships’ and Vash and Roderich as marooned sailors – so on and so forth until most of the arguments were forgotten. Roderich, however, stayed away from the water for the rest of the day. Eventually the air grew cool and the sky grew pink with golden streaks of sunset, and Mrs Héderváry shooed everyone out of the water.

 

“You’ve spent far too long in there,” she announced. “I’m surprised you haven’t all turned into wrinkly little prunes.”

 

After that, there was little else to do except walk home. Arthur and Francis were the first ones to leave, riding off together on their bikes. Gilbert called his father to come pick him up and while Vash was intensely curious to meet another one of those strange creatures of the Beilschmidt genus, Roderich was to be leaving soon. In silent agreement, Vash walked home with him.

 

The sunset was long and brilliant that evening, slowly fading from pale pink to deepest indigo. Vash and Roderich left the Kastély when the sky was mauve and arrived at their neighbouring houses as it was approaching the regal navy of night. Their walk was a quiet one, but most definitely a friendly one. Roderich, despite his unplanned trip into the pool, was smiling, and Vash did not want to ruin his mood by asking what caused it. So through the park and down the road they walked together, neither saying a word until they reached Edelstein Manor.

 

“Today was fun,” Roderich said quietly.

 

“Sorry that Gilbert threw you into the pool,” said Vash before he had time to think.

 

Roderich gave him an odd look. “Well, it’s not like it’s your fault or anything.”

 

“Yeah, but it was still a pretty awful thing to have happen to you.” Vash sighed. “Sorry. I mean, I had fun too. Elli’s house is great.”

 

“Yeah,” said Roderich. “Yeah. Well, I’ll see you later, then.”

 

“Yeah,” said Vash, and Roderich turned to walk down his driveway. He had gone quite a few steps before Vash finally gathered enough courage.

 

“Hey Roderich!” he called, and his neighbour faced him in reply. “Do you want to… maybe, hang out again this summer?”

 

Even from such a distance Vash could see the size of the smile that graced Roderich’s face.

 

“Sure!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I would have this up the day before I went to Germany and now I'm posting it the day before I LEAVE Germany oh dear. At least it's slightly poetic, whatever.
> 
> I'm sure I had plenty to say about this chapter but it took so long what with all the travelling I did and somehow doubled in size but I've wanted to write this one for a while. Eh, at least it's cool that I worked on this in four separate countries, including Austria itself. 
> 
> Next one probably won't be as big so mAYBE I CAN GET IT DONE ON TIME. I'm that absolute worst at deadlines I'm sorry everyone.


	16. A Gift from Gilbert

Mid-afternoon a few days later saw Vash ensconced in his bedroom, rifling through notebook after notebook of his old artillery designs. He’d found a huge cache of them in a drawer of his desk which had, until quite recently, been jammed shut for a few years. Such a careful hand has put pencil to paper and produced solid, if crude, outlines of bizarre machines of war, with detailed notes covering the rest of the page. He had almost forgotten just how fastidious he had been when it came to the details of his inventions. Everything from design specs to tactical advantages to instructions for use were written in the same eager yet careful hand throughout the notebooks. 

 

Vash had forgotten just how keen he’d been about the whole army thing as a kid. It seemed kind of weird now, but the appeal was still there at the back of his mind, that eagerness to fight and win, to see his machines in action. He’d always planned to learn how shoot when he was older, and was surprised to find that he still liked that idea. There was an army range nearby somewhere, out of town, and Vash knew for a fact that they held shooting lessons and hosted several rifle teams – he’d seen their flyers. Maybe now that he was indeed older, and going into highschool, he’d take lessons there, maybe even join one of their teams. It’d be something new at least.

 

Putting aside the notebooks, Vash began to wonder where all his old toy guns were. He’d had quite a few, of all sizes and shapes, and most had been modified commercial ones changed to suit Vash’s imagination. There was no way his mother had thrown them out – despite her affinity for cleaning she was never one for getting rid of things her children had made without explicit permission. They definitely weren’t in Vash’s room, it was too small for a large collection of fake weapons to go unnoticed for years. Perhaps they were still in the front room…

 

Upstairs and at the fore of the house, the ‘front room’ was so called because the family had never really been able to give it a specific purpose. If needed it was used as a spare bedroom, but guests were not too common and the ones that did stay the night were usually given the very top room, which was like an attic except actually nice. The front room was used as everything from storage to a playroom to a workroom. It was there Vash had taken apart and reassembled his toy guns, stuck bits of cardboard and balsa to them, and occasionally made ones from scratch. He recalled he had kept quite a cache of them under the old brass bed of the front room. 

 

The house was quiet as he moved through the upstairs corridor; his father had taken Lilli out for a walk and his mother was downstairs reading, leaving Vash pretty much on his own. The carpet in the front room, where it was visible, was a darker grey from years of dust and workshop refuse, and the whole room had its own, unique air. There was a lot kept in that room, a lot more than most people would think. The brass bed stood where it always did, made but never slept in, and beneath it lay a plethora of cardboard boxes.  Vash pulled out one full of old Tintin comics, another that contained various miscellaneous, old pieces of paper until, finally, he pulled twelve plastic guns into the open. They seemed smaller than he remembered, with worse paintjobs and rather terrible construction. But still, he couldn’t help but be filled with excitement again.

 

His favourite was there, right on top of the pile, and without even hesitating Vash grabbed it. His hand was now rather too big for the once perfectly fitting grip and that one stray lump of glue was actually pretty painful nowadays but it was still his favourite. What had he called it? Something ridiculous, no doubt, and probably several different names over the course of a single week. One of his favoured guns had been the Blue Cow, that much he remembered, but which one was that? More importantly, what on Earth had possessed him to call a gun the _Blue Cow_? 

 

Looking out the window, he saw that pair of shoes which had been thrown over the electrical wires for as long as he could remember. When he was younger, and not in the backyard, he’d used them for target practice, firing invisible bullets at them from so many different guns, pretending to calibrate them, and then firing again. It seemed really stupid now, but Vash couldn’t help but loose a few pretend rounds at the shoes. Now thoroughly embarrassed, Vash thought it would be a good idea to put the guns away before he fell into any more nostalgic shenanigans. But before he turned away from the window, he glimpsed someone walking down his driveway. Someone in a German soccer jersey, with white hair and-

 

“ _Gilbert_?”

 

If Vash had not been so confounded as to why Gilbert was walking up his driveway, he would have probably laughed at the huge jolt Gilbert gave at the sound of his name. Looking around wildly, Gilbert’s bizarrely-coloured eyes grew even wider at the sight of Vash.

 

“Is that a _gun_?”

 

“Yes. Uh, no. It’s a toy. What are you doing here?!”

 

“Well I’ve been doing some thinking,” Gilbert called out. “About the other day at Elli’s, and I-” 

 

“Gilbert, hold on, I’m not having a conversation that has to be shouted across the suburb. Stay there for a second.”

 

Putting his old gun back on top of the box, Vash dashed down the stairs to the front door. Gilbert was, as instructed, still standing in the middle of his driveway. 

 

“Okay, what was it?” asked Vash, walking up to him.

 

Gilbert flicked his eyes toward the house. “You’re not gonna let me in?”

 

Vash crossed his arms and lowered his eyes, hoping he looked resolute and formidable instead of just confused and unsure of his own actions. 

 

“Okay, okay,” said Gilbert. “I get it, you’re mad because I pushed Roderich into the pool face first and almost hit you.”

 

Vash tried to keep his expression as stony as possible. 

 

“But that’s why I’m here! I’ve come to _apologise_.” With this final word, Gilbert fell into some ridiculous bow, which only served to heighten Vash’s suspicion. 

 

“Why?”

 

Gilbert gave an aggressive shrug. “Because it’s… nice? I dunno, I guess it was just pretty shitty of me to push him in like that when he doesn’t like being in water that much.”

 

“Did Elli tell you to come here?”

 

“Yes!” said Gilbert, oddly proud. “But the important thing is that I _listened_.”

 

Vash decided to uncross his arms at last. “Okay. That’s… pretty good for you. Thanks for saying sorry. But you really should apologise to Roderich more than me.”

 

“Yeah but…” Gilbert glanced towards Edelstein Manor. “Would go knocking on their door asking to speak to their son?”

 

Vash followed his gaze, taking in the foreboding grounds, dark and gloomy even in summer, and then nodded stiffly. 

 

“Makes sense. But next time you see him you have to apologise. And do it properly.”

 

“You got it!” said Gilbert clicking his fingers. “And, hey! I came over for another reason, too!”

 

Vash was back on guard in an instant. “…What’s that?”

 

“I have a contribution to your cause!”

 

“I have no idea what on Earth you are talking about.”

 

Gilbert gave a huffy sigh. “Your plan to spend the summer with Roderich? I have an idea!”

 

Vash kept his eyebrows low. “Does it involve vampires?”

 

“Nah,” said Gilbert. “Vash doesn’t look he can run too fast, best not to let him near things that’d eat him. But get your bike, come on! I’ll show you!”

 

Vash regarded Gilbert for quite some time, and he had to admire that Gilbert’s eager grin didn’t falter once the whole time. Although it was rather disconcerting…

 

“I’ll go tell my mum I’m going out and we’ll be off.”

 

“Awesome!” cried Gilbert.

 

_This is not going to end well_.

 

***

 

Vash arrived home on the cusp of afternoon and evening, which was very difficult to discern during summer what with the sun, much like the temperature, staying quite high for quite a long time. His mother had seen no problem with him going riding with Gilbert, and was quite pleased to hear her son wanted to go out again tomorrow. 

 

“It’s good to see you getting out of the house,” she said over dinner. Vash found this to be rather hypocritical considering her own love of the great indoors, yet thought it wise not to comment.

 

“Where’d you go?” asked his father.

 

“Oh… uh, just around the area. It was… really nice. Yeah.”

 

“Stayed out of those posh gardens, I hope,” said his father in jest, eyes scrunching closed the way they did whenever he made a joke.

 

Vash laughed nervously, and tried not to think of the posh garden he’d be entering tomorrow. 

 

That evening, once the sun had at last disappeared and the Edge fallen silent, Vash slipped out into his backyard and made his way towards the fence. He hoped Roderich hadn’t noticed his absence that afternoon, and if he had, that he hadn’t thought anything bad.  Ever so carefully Vash balanced a little note on the fence. Hoping Roderich would see it before tomorrow afternoon, Vash returned quietly to the house and began an agonising wait.

 

The night and the morning seemed to drip by like honey, falling slowly into the present at a maddeningly slow pace. Everything from the heat to the sunlight to the day to day noises of his family seemed to annoy him, and Vash felt for sure he wouldn’t survive until the afternoon. But, of course, he did and the second the clock ticked over to two – the agreed-upon time – he dashed out the door with a  quick goodbye thrown over his shoulder.

 

Taking his bike from the carport, he wheeled it slowly up the driveway, down the street and then into the Edelsteins’ driveway. This was no doubt the most ridiculous and potentially embarrassing thing he’d ever done and the huge, gloomy trees that lined the Edelsteins’ formidable gravel driveway certainly weren’t helping to lighten his mood. The gravel crunched slowly beneath the rather battered wheels of Vash’s bike and he suddenly found himself ashamed of the poor condition it was in. It was several years old and rarely used, with chipped paint and flaking plastic. Roderich probably had some gleaming, perfect bike. Nicer even than Arthur Kirkland’s favoured vintage ride, Vash could see Roderich’s bike as clear as day. Painted some clean, regal colour, he would suit it perfectly, sit upon it with ease, and look at Vash’s own with pity. Hot blood flushed Vash’s face as he realised how ridiculous his imaginings were, yet his shame in his own bicycle did not falter in the slightest. But soon all thoughts of bikes flew from his mind as a rapid crunching sound filled the air and suddenly a running Roderich came into view.

 

The young aristocrat sped around a corner in the drive and ran all the way up to Vash before slowing down and then standing awkwardly in front of him. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and then blurted,

 

“I can’t ride a bike.”

 

“That’s okay we can walk,” replied Vash with tremendous speed. 

 

Roderich seemed quite startled by the immediate response but his expression immediately brightened into a smile.

 

“Can I chain my bike at the end of your driveway? If I go back to my house my parents might get confused.”

 

“Of course.”

 

To begin with their walk was filled with an excited, yet rather awkward silence. Vash knew he had to say something, yet couldn’t think of a single conversational topic. At least it was some consolation to know Roderich was just as socially lost. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he just didn’t feel like talking to Vash. No that was ridiculous. But, maybe, if-

 

“So,” said Vash, desperate to cut off his own thoughts, “how did you get our parents to let you go today?”

 

Roderich gave a little laugh. “It was really difficult, but at the same time surprisingly easy. I mean, it was hard thinking of an excuse, but they bought it with no questions asked. I suppose it’s because I’ve never really lied to them before…”

 

“Do you feel bad about that?” Vash asked, instantly hating his bluntness. “Because, y’know, I don’t want you to have to do stuff that makes you feel bad. You shouldn’t have to lie to your parents if you don’t want to, I mean I don’t have to-”

 

“It’s okay,” said Roderich. “I suppose I actually have to lie to them if I want to do anything. They barely let me leave the house. I’ve just never had a reason to want to get out of the house… Nowhere to go, no one to see, really.”

 

Vash gave a small smile. “Same for me really. Well, my parents are actually really great, hardly strict at all, but yeah… I never really had a reason to go out before.”

 

Roderich looked around at the huge trees that framed the street they now walked. “Where exactly are we going? Your note didn’t say.”

 

“Somewhere cool,” said Vash. “Don’t worry, it’s nearby.”

 

And nearby it was, for not too long later Vash and Roderich found them self suddenly in the midst of a local patch of forest.

 

“How did we even get here?” asked Roderich. 

 

“Yeah, this route is great like that,” said Vash. “You never know where you’re going to end up. But we’re close to the end now.”

 

“I really am curious now.”

 

“You mean you weren’t before?”

 

“Hmm… I was curious before. Now I just have to know.”

 

Vash smiled to himself. “You’re going to believe this, but it was Gilbert who showed me this.”

 

“Gilbert? Really?”

 

“Yeah, he was in an oddly nice mood and everything. He even apologised about pushing you in the pool and said next time he saw you he’d say sorry to you, too.”

 

“I bet Elli’s been talking to him,” said Roderich. “But why would he show you this nice route to wherever it is we’re going?”

 

Vash found himself starting to blush and quickly looked away, focusing intently on a nearby flowering bush. “No idea,” he mumbled.

 

Just a few minutes later Vash and Roderich found themselves in front of a natural rock wall, a huge tree standing half in front, half in the wall.  

 

“It’s through here,” said Vash, excitement beginning to show in his voice. 

 

Following Vash’s lead, Roderich wormed his way through a split at the base of the trunk, emerging somewhere behind the wall. At first it was dark and even Vash, despite his earlier visit, felt a sharp twinge of fear at the sudden change in his surroundings. But soon the light source of the cave revealed itself and elicited an enchanted gasp from Roderich.

 

On the walls, on the roof, on the ground, and all through the tiny stream that ran by their feet there were glowworms. Their bioluminescence seemed to grow brighter the longer they looked and although Vash couldn’t really see Roderich, he could practically _feel_ him looking around in wonder. 

 

Vash leaned back against the wall in order to present himself as cool and casual in the face of wonder, forgetting that it was too dark for Roderich to actually see his movements.

 

“This is incredible,” said Roderich, and in the gloom Vash could see he had stepped a few steps forward. “I can’t believe Gilbert was the one to show you this. How did he even find it?”

 

“I’ve got,” a glowworm climbed onto Vash’s neck, causing him to leap from the wall mid-sentence with a closed-mouth, muffled cry of shock. “Uh, I’ve got no idea. But he seems like the kind to climb into a random tree for no reason.”

 

Roderich gave a tiny laugh, no more than the barest puff of air. “There are so many,” he whispered. 

 

Ceased by some sudden impulse, words were coming from Vash’s mouth that he’d never intended.

 

“I know why he showed me it, though.”

 

And despite the darkness, Roderich turned to face his neighbour. “Why?” His voice sounded kind of odd to Vash. _Must be an echo from the cave or something_ , he thought.

 

“Uh, well, I sort of had this idea at the beginning of the summer. Well, a bit earlier than that. Actually it doesn’t matter when I had the idea because it’s about the whole summer. And, um, the idea was, uh, born? Is that the right term? Uh, anyway, yeah the idea was born from the fact that you never really got to leave the house or do anything or hang out with anyone and that really sucks because, y’know, you’re great to hang out with. And yeah, I sort of had this idea that I’d hang out with you for this summer and take you to cool places and just… yeah. Make sure you had a good summer. Gilbert wanted to help and uh, he showed me this so I could show you. Yeah.”

 

The cave seemed to be soaked in silence, and Vash could swear he was soaked in sweat from nerves. He hadn’t meant to tell Roderich about his plan; it was just supposed to be something that happened. What if he seemed weird now? What if Roderich thought he was being creepy? What if he’d ruined the whole effect of spending so much time with him? What happened now? 

 

Vash was so busy fretting internally that he hadn’t even noticed Roderich had stepped forward. Completely reasonable, of course, considering the extremely limited and unorthodox source of light, yet he did receive a bit of a shock when he did realise. 

 

“Thanks.” Roderich was very quiet, to the extent that Vash thought for a moment that he’d imagined the comment. “That’s probably – definitely – the most thoughtful thing anyone’s done for me.”

 

The cave was completely silent again. Even the tiny stream seemed to stop flowing and the glowworms stop moving.               The world seemed to be waiting. Roderich waited and so did Vash, neither knowing what to expect but both expecting something at least. But what did happen know? What was the proper course of action in a situation like this? Vash had absolutely no idea, and was fairly confident Roderich was as equally lost. Then, he supposed, theoretically they could do anything. That idea was even more terrifying than Vash would have expected. But something needed to be done, even if it was something stupid. And blundering through important silences with odd statements was fast becoming a specialty of Vash’s.

 

“I wonder how deep this goes,” he said, looking around the cave despite not being able to see anything.

 

“Me too,” said Roderich.

 

“There could be glowworms for miles.”

 

“And who knows what else.”

 

“Do you want to go explore it?”

 

“No way,” said Roderich. “There could be something waiting down there to eat us. Not to mention getting lost. I’d much rather just stay here with you, or maybe walk around the forest.”

 

Vash smiled. “You’re definitely smarter than me, that’s for sure.”

 

“Oh I disagree,” said Roderich.

 

“How so?”

 

“You can walk for half an hour without getting hopelessly lost.”

 

Vash managed a laugh at this. “That doesn’t necessarily make me smart.”

 

“Neither does not wanting to explore some cave.”

 

“I suppose we’re just on equal footing, then,” said Vash.

 

“Sounds about right,” replied Roderich. “Now come have a look at these glowworms in the stream – they can swim! Here, look at that one, it’s huge! And over here…”

 

_If only it were light in the cave_ , thought Vash. There was something about Roderich’s voice – the wonder, the incredulity? Something like that – that made Vash simply ache to see his face. This summer was certainly going to be a good one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated before Christmas!! Aren't you all so proud of me? Of course not, I haven't updated for over two months, and for that I'm truly sorry. I don't really have much excuse past mid-November, when my yearly exams were, except for that I was celebrating the end of exams and then suddenly it was Christmas (all of December is Christmas to me).
> 
> Oh and I was working on my book but usually I'm good at working on that in conjunction with fanfics so I'm not sure what happened there.
> 
> As for discussing the chapter itself, I hope Gilbert wasn't too OOC or anything, it's just that I dislike depictions of him as 100% self-centred. And while he is just a kid in the story and naturally childish, I still think there is definitely a decency to him and a sincere fondness for his friends that he has difficulty expressing properly without prompting.
> 
> Also I know nothing really about glowworms I just think they're cool.
> 
> This whole chapter was written in one day and I had no idea how to end it, I hope it doesn't show too badly orz


	17. Annoyed Aristocrats

 

The soccer ball Vash had received for his twelfth birthday had seen little use by the time summer rolled around, its most exciting adventure probably being a single game on the school’s diminutive oval one lunch time. This was not due to any particular feeling of Vash’s towards soccer, but rather a simple logistics problem. There wasn’t anyone to play with. His friends all quite enjoyed soccer, but could barely last five seconds without launching into intense arguments as to the rules, who fouled, and wild and often quite rude accusations at each other. Vash was used to the bickering, but it certainly ate into playing time. And when it came to his family, Vash’s father worked hours that allowed him to be there when his arrived home from school, and very few other times, while his mother worked the traditional nine-to-five, albeit with a hefty commute.  Lilli, of course, was only five and while Vash didn’t mind playing catch or whatever with her sometimes there really weren’t any opportunities to improve his skills with her.

 

So, on the Thursday of the second week of holidays, Vash too his soccer ball and headed up to the park at the end of the street. While he probably had plenty of space in his garden to practice in, somehow the simple act of walking up to the park made the situation more serious. Also less likely to end in him wandering back up to the house, bored, after five minutes.  Besides, the park had those well-positioned trees that just begged to be used as goalposts. 

 

Instead of honing practical game skills, however, he spent most of the time trying to bounce the ball off odd parts of his body and catch them with others – the sort of moves used solely to impress teammates with little use on the field. He did once manage to successfully imitate a bizarre foot-to-head-to-foot-to-shoulder and so on pattern he had seen on television once and was so surprised he accidentally shot the ball halfway across the park in his attempt to finish with a flourish.

 

His head lowered half in embarrassment, half in tiredness, Vash made his way towards the ball – and thanks to his averted gaze almost missed it hurtling towards him again. It landed awkwardly in his quickly-extended arms, so much so that he almost dropped it again. In the time it took Vash to stop fumbling like a loon and actually look up, the person who had kicked the ball back had almost reached him.

 

“Arthur?” Vash hadn’t meant to release his confusion aloud, and blushed slightly as Arthur gave a small huff of humour. 

 

“We aristocrats do leave our homes _sometimes_ ,” he smiled.

 

“Well yes, I mean, I knew that… I just-”

 

“My brothers kicked me out of our backyard because… well I can’t actually remember. I presume they’d invented another seriously dangerous hybrid sport and didn’t want to get in trouble for accidentally killing me,” said Arthur, slightly worrying Vash with his nonchalance. 

 

“Your brothers remind me of Gilbert,” said Vash. 

 

“Ah, Gilbert. He was at Elli’s the other day, correct?” 

 

Vash nodded.

 

“Very bizarre person, he kept looking at me as if I were about to explode.”

 

Vash sighed. “He has this theory that your family are vampires. No idea _why_ , I think it’s based solely on how dark your house is and something Francis said as a joke once. Don’t take anything he does seriously.” Vash paused and remembered the walk Gilbert had shown him, and how much Roderich had liked the fireflies. “Well, most things, I suppose.”

 

Arthur’s eyebrows quirked skywards and Vash had no idea if this silent judgement was for the Gilbert Beilschmidt Patented Vampire Theorem, or the random and admittedly obtuse addition to his sentence. There was just something dauntingly _certain_ about Arthur’s mannerisms that made Vash certain he could see right through every one of Vash’s actions and deftly extract his entire emotional state. It was quite terrifying. 

 

“Very bizarre indeed,” said Arthur, and those eyebrows finally settled. “That a new soccer ball?”

 

“Oh, uh, not really. I got it for my birthday but I never really got a chance to use it so…” Vash trailed off. 

 

Arthur nodded methodically. “So,” he said, rather awkwardly, “you’re not out with Roderich today?”

 

Vash let out a great sigh and looked down at his soccer ball. “Francis told you about that, then. He can’t keep his mouth shut, even just once…”

 

“Oh, my apologies! I didn’t realise it was supposed to be a secret, he simply mentioned it in passing conversation, you know how Francis can be, he’s quite rude really when it comes down to it.” Arthur gave an awkward laugh. 

 

It’s alright. It wasn’t really a secret I guess,” said Vash. There was a loose thread on the soccer ball, and he was suddenly very intent on picking it to pieces. “Francis just… well he seems to have no problem with telling everybody about my current emotions and goals and it’s… weird. I don’t know why I tell him stuff, because I know for _certain_ he’ll tell others. I mean, I’d never tell him something utterly completely secret so I suppose it’s not too bad it’s just… annoying, you know?”

 

Arthur nodded slowly. “He’s quite an open person. But sometimes that does actually work out in everyone’s favour.”

 

Vash raised an eyebrow, deigning to look up from the ball at last. “Really?”

 

“Alright, I can’t think of an example right now, but one day he’s going to be very useful.”

 

“And until then, I guess I’ll just have to deal with everyone knowing I have a stupid, giant crush on Roderich Edelstein.” 

 

With this, Vash dropped the ball and kicked it with such incredible force that it shot across the park at an incredible speed, back towards Vash’s street

 

“Why the hell did I do that?” he muttered, grumbling as he began to traipse his way to where the exasperation-powered projectile now lay. 

 

Arthur, after floundering for a few moments in awkward confusion, decided to follow Vash’s trail of kvetching. 

 

“I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into,” Arthur said, stopping as Vash picked up the ball. “Hold on, that sounded rather threatening. But an Edelstein is, really, the worst choice imaginable.”

 

“I didn’t _choose_ anything,” said Vash. “And I already know how bad the Edelsteins are. They don’t leave their house and they don’t interact with anyone and I should stay away from them but I can’t, okay? I’m sick of people telling me about how weird they are and how tiny my chances are of… well I don’t know! Something, people are always expecting me to do, to want, something! But right now I don’t really want to do anything except spend time with Roderich but that’s hard because – yeah! – his family are absolutely ridiculous! But seriously, is that so bad? Everyone – Francis _especially_ , oh I could go on for forever about how annoying he’s been – seems so intent on catastrophizing this into some kind of disaster waiting to happen but it _isn’t_ , okay? I just want to spend some time with my neighbour who has strict parents – everyone can take their melodramatic non-existent tragedy and…” 

 

Vash let out a great sigh, seeming to finally run out of steam. 

 

“Sorry for yelling,” he said. “But I just feel this doesn’t have to end badly. And, you know, even if it does all go to shit, why can’t I enjoy it now?”

 

Vash started off back towards his house, head lowered awkwardly and clutching the soccer ball tight. His explosion had been mortifying, but at least Arthur hadn’t said anything. And he wasn’t Francis. But he might _tell_ Francis… Vash actually stopped walking for a second to shake his head. He really need to learn how to stay quiet. 

 

Still, he stuck by everything he’d said, running those same thoughts through his head as the day wore on.

 

***

 

That night was one of those beautifully quiet nights, devoid of all distraction and promising nothing but rest, yet despite this soothing atmosphere, Vash lay wide awake for a good deal of time. He wasn’t quite sure why, it wasn’t particularly hot or anything, but he was so far from sleep it was practically obscene. Not even introspection was to blame, Vash spent his night hyper aware of the house around him – the tiny ticks of the clock, the bizarre noises of the old house shifting and settling, and the muffled, minute sounds of his family asleep. It was an extraordinary stroke of luck, really, that such a deep sleeper was that night so attuned to the sounds of the house. Otherwise, he would have most certainly missed his cue.

 

At first he thought it was some nocturnal animal scampering around, or something from a nearby tree being blown against the house, but when the indistinguishable whispers started, Vash had to accept that someone was throwing things at his house. Upon sticking his head out the window, however, he saw no one. The unseen assailant also seemed to be ignorant of company, as the whispers and throwing continued.

 

“Hey!” Vash called. His stomach churned as he realised he may have just thoroughly annoyed a potential house-breaker and entertained for a second the notion of retreating inside, bolting down his window and pretending to have heard nothing. 

 

“Vash?” 

 

“ _Elli_?”

 

“Yeah!” she cried, voice harsh in a false-whisper. “Can I talk to you?”

 

“Elli what’re you…? Okay, I can’t talk to you like this. Are you in my backyard?”

 

“Yeah!”

 

“Stay there, I’ll be down in a second,” he called to her, desperately hoping no one else had woken up. 

 

After pulling his favoured green hoodie over his pyjamas and quickly tugging on some shoes, Vash made his way down the hall to the stairs. Nothing seemed to have changed, certainly it was just as quiet as it had been prior to Elli’s arrival, but Vash was still very nervous. He wasn’t quite sure if it having a friend show up in the middle of the night was actually something his parents would get mad at, but waking them up sure would be a cause of annoyance.

 

Elli was indeed waiting for him in the backyard, just as promised, yet Vash was still rather startled to see her there.

 

“What on Earth is going on?” he asked as soon as she was within earshot. 

 

“Hey, woah, calm down! Nothing big.” 

 

“Elli you’re throwing things at my house after midnight, it has to be big,” said Vash. 

 

Elli sighed. “I sort of ran away.”

 

“ _What_?” Vash cried, instantly prompting a huge wave of shushing from Elli. 

 

“Not so loud, hey? The Edelsteins are right next door!”

 

“Yes, I noticed,” said Vash. “But, running away? What do you think you’re doing?”

 

Elli crossed her arms and huffed a bit, making Vash sigh.

 

“If you’re so worried about the Edelsteins overhearing you we can go sit in that weird abandoned gazebo at the bottom on the garden,” he said eventually. “It’s ages from everywhere but it’s probably also haunted  and full of spiders or whatever.”

 

Elli was quite happy to go to the Zwinglis’ abandoned gazebo. 

 

“I’m probably going to go back in the morning,” was the first thing she said, kicking her legs as she sat on a rotten bench. “But I just felt like I had to leave for a bit. Just spend the night away from home. They’re not even going to know I was gone, I’m not doing anything bad or anything…”

 

“I didn’t say you were.” 

 

“I just – _ugh_ , you know?” Elli kept her eyes on her swinging legs. “I kinda want to talk about it but also not really?”

 

“So I’m guessing something happened, then?”

 

“Yeah, but I was actually telling the truth when I said it wasn’t something big,” she replied. “We just spent the day at the Edelsteins’ and it was really normal and stuff but… I just hate it. When I think about how casual they are about the expectations they put on us and how they debate us when we’re in the room I just… I don’t know, I just have to get out. I think I went out tonight just to show that I could. To prove I was capable of random action and that not everything had to be about impressing your stupid neighbours rich on their dead grandmothers.” 

 

Elli kicked her legs faster. Vash didn’t really know what to say.

 

“More talk of homeschooling?”

 

“Yeah,” said Elli “I’ve been enrolled in high school for next year but I can tell my parents want to pull me out whenever they can.” 

 

“That’s just… well, really, it’s just ridiculous.”

 

Elli gave a weak laugh. “I’ll say. Man, if I was in charge of all that money and the house and everything, I sure wouldn’t be using it to pull moves as dickish as this.”

 

“Something to look forward when you inherit, then,” smiled Vash. 

 

“Mmm,” hummed Elli. 

 

They sat quietly for a while, Elli’s legs still swinging like vigorous little pendulums. 

 

“Vash?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Can I stay here for tonight?”

 

“What, in this gazebo?” he asked.

 

“Yeah.”

 

Now it was Vash who hummed. “There are bats or mice or… something living in here. Doesn’t sound like a very good idea.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I guess I’ll stay out here with you, then.”

 

“Now _that’s_ a bad idea,” Elli laughed. 

 

“Says the girl who ran away from home at midnight.”

 

“True,” she said. “Next time I won’t wake you up so late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here I was thinking I'd get something done in the summer. This chapter doesn't even add too much...
> 
> I suppose that's what happens when you don't plan anything and decide to write by the seat of your pants on a slow-paced project. That and I'm quite lazy.
> 
> The next one might be more interesting. Maybe. I don't really know what I'm doing from now until they hit about fifteen/sixteen years old. Let's just see what happens, I guess~


	18. The Fountain of Hope

“Do you know what you want to do when you grow up?”

 

The two had been quiet for some time after running out of things to talk about. Vash had thought Elli to be asleep until she posed the question, her head thrown back, eyes closed and her swinging legs still.

 

“Vash?” she asked, sitting up.

 

“I’m thinking,” he answered. He too had been sitting with his head back, but not resting against the gazebo walls like Elli had been – he’d seen far too many creepy crawling things in there to trust it.

 

“So you don’t have a definite, be-all and end-all dream, then?”

 

“When I was little,” said Vash, “I wanted to join the army. But I’m not fit, and I don’t really want to go through boot camp or anything. So, yeah, nothing definite.”

 

“I know what I want to do,” she said, throwing her arms behind her head. Vash sat up and looked straight at her. This was the first time since she’d arrived that she’d spoken about herself and even though it didn’t exactly correlate to her current situation, Vash was still hopeful to understand what exactly had happened at Héderváry Kastély earlier that day.

 

“I wanna leave here.”

 

“Any place in particular you plan on going to?”

 

Elli shrugged. “Away,” she said. “I can’t stand it here.”

 

Struck by her bluntness, Vash physically recoiled ever so slightly, bringing a smile to her lips.

 

“It sounds kinda terrible when you say it out loud, right?’ she said. “I know everyone’s supposed to have that hometown pride and all that crap, but my family were brought here a hundred and whatever years ago as prisoners of war and then for some reason decided to _stay_ and buy into all this snooty, aren’t-we-better-than-everyone nonsense.” She sighed. “I’m trying not to be ungrateful; my family’s money has bought me so much but… there’s so much _baggage_ attached to it. I don’t understand why they care so much about all the other aristocrats. Really, I just have no idea why they didn’t go back to Hungary as soon as they could.”

 

A great pause followed, Vash unsure how to react and wanting to learn more, and Elli eager for commentary.

 

“I hope you do get away,” Vash said eventually. “It sounds like you really need to.”

 

“Thanks,” she smiled, visibly relaxing. “You and Roderich should come, too. You’re like the only decent things about this town.”

 

“Uhh… wow. Really?”

 

Elli laughed. “Yup. We could all head off together, wherever we want. Hell, we could go _everywhere_ we want. See the coolest places, do everything we ever dreamed of, get the best jobs ever or no jobs at all. I would get all of the dudes – all of them, so many dudes Vash – and you and Roderich could get married or whatever and-”

 

Vash chuckled. “Oh wow for a second there I didn’t realise you were joking.”

 

Elli laughed weakly and looked away. “Seriously,” she said quietly. “Someday we all should just go.”

 

“Maybe I will,” said Vash. “I mean, it’s not like I have anything planned for pretty much ever.”

 

Elli shot him a look and he quickly back tracked.

 

“I’m serious! I have no idea what to do with myself! Just leaving forever sounds scary and risky and everything but that also makes it pretty exciting, actually. I think with enough planning we could actually do it someday,” he said.

 

Elli grinned at him. “Y’know Vash, that means a lot t-”

 

Somewhere close by a twig snapped loudly prompting both to jump and a rather bizarre squeak to leap from Vash. At the Edelstein-Zwingli fence line torchlight appeared, the beam moving haphazardly around, as if searching for someone.

 

“Is that Roderich?” Vash asked, teeth closed and as quiet as he could be.

 

“You go check,” Elli whispered back, muffling herself with her hand.

 

“Why me?”

 

“ _You live here!_ ”

 

“Alright fine.”

 

The beam of torchlight was still flailing about as Vash approaches the fence. At first he tried to evade his neighbour’s notice, and then realised that made absolutely no sense because it was his garden anyway. When he finally wandered into the bulb’s range, it disappeared almost seconds later.

 

“Oh,” said Roderich’s voice. “It’s just you.”

 

“What are you doing up so late?” asked Vash. “And in your garden?”

 

“I was about to ask you precisely the same thing,” said Roderich, and then Vash heard him step forward. “I heard voices from your garden. I was frightened perhaps someone was trying to break into your house.”

 

“There’s no need for worry, it was just me,” said Vash.

 

“And me,” said Elli, stepping out of seemingly nowhere and causing Roderich to jolt.

 

“Elli!” he cried. “What on Earth are you doing in Vash's garden at four in the morning?”

 

She shrugged and moved slowly to lean against the wrought iron fence. “Cause I feel like it.”

 

Roderich turned to Vash, who turned to Elli, unsure if he was allowed to mention the running away in Roderich’s presence.

 

“Okay, fine, I ran away,” she said.

 

“What!?” cried Roderich, earning him multiple shushes from the other two.

 

“Not permanently or anything,” muttered Elli. “I just… felt really bad today, alright?”

 

“Oh,” said Roderich. “I’m sorry I didn’t realise earlier today. You should have said something, I would have been happy to help.”

 

Elli sighed. “Doesn’t it upset you too? When they debate our future in front of you, and how casually they demand the highest success in everything? And you’ve got way worse parents than mine I mean… You’ve never done anything,” she said quietly. “They don’t want you to do _anything_ except what they’ve planned for you. They never let you go to regular school or hang out with anyone or meet anyone in the first place!” She was yelling now, and while Vash flicked a few concerned glances at his and Roderich’s houses, there was no stopping her. “How are you not tearing your hair out? How was _I_ the first one to run away!? It just doesn’t make any sense I mean are you _okay_ with all the crap they give you? If I had your parents I would have gone crazy _years_ ago!”

 

“What do you want me to do?” Roderich asked, his voice very small. “I can’t just leave and do whatever I want.”

 

“Well why not?” Elli was still quite loud, and Vash was still quite concerned at their current proximity to Edelstein Manor. “No seriously, why? Come on, Edelstein, show me your reasoning!”

 

“I-I…” Roderich stuttered, and then his voice gained strength. “I can’t leave, alright? I simply can’t. It’s not even in the _realm_ of possibility, so why don’t you just drop the subject and go home? If you’re back before dawn, you may be able to prevent your parents from ever knowing you’re gone.”

 

“I can’t believe this,” said Elli, thankfully slightly quieter now, but certainly no less angry. “You’re really going to do nothing? Nothing at _all_? You’re not even going to think about doing something with yourself?”

 

"What could we possibly do, Elli? We're 12."

 

Elli looked for a moment as if she was about to explode, so fierce she was actually shaking, and then suddenly froze. A light had appeared in one of the Manor’s windows, not too far from where they were standing. With its appearance, Roderich looked as if he was about to throw up.

 

“Run,” said Vash, seriously afraid himself.

 

“I’m not done with you yet,” whispered Elli.

 

Roderich bounced on his toes, unsure of who to listen to and his eyes constantly returning to the lightened window.

 

“Look, uh…” Vash started, his tongue clumsy with nerves. “Everybody run – we can continue this discussion later this morning and Elli needs to go home and uh – just get out of here!”

 

The three scattered and as Vash raced up the back stairs of his home, he heard a door of the Edelstein Manor open. He could only hope it was Roderich getting back inside, and not someone else arriving in the courtyard.

 

***

 

Vash spent the rest of the night as far from sleep as possible. He hadn’t heard anything more after the door had opened, but that was hardly reassuring. He worried for Roderich, and for Elli, too. Not only was he afraid they would be caught by their parents, but what Elli had been talking – well, yelling – about to Roderich. _She seemed so upset, like she was about to snap any second._ _I hope she doesn’t do anything too rash_ , he thought _No no, it’s Elli. She’s too smart to do something that could endanger her…_

 

But didn’t running away at midnight classify as something that could endanger her, though? _It sure was rash, that’s for sure._ The more he thought about Elli, the more concerned he grew. She had the exact wrong personality for growing up in aristocratic family, he decided. People like Arthur and Roderich seemed capable enough of keeping their heads down and complying with expectations until such a time when they could go off to university and not come back, or whatever it was they wanted to do. Elli, however… The worst part of it all was that she was a completely lovely person under normal circumstances, a little quick to anger and rather defensive, sure, but nothing major.

 

_I wonder if her parents know how much this is affecting her_.

 

***

 

It took Vash a surprisingly short amount of time to regret inviting Elli back over, as she seemed intent on doing nothing but yell at Roderich. Not to mention her arguments had barely evolved past the initial, instinctual anger stage.

 

“I still don’t know what you want me to do!” Roderich blurted after a long, confused rant from Elli.

 

“I _told_ you!” she cried. “You need to stand up for yourself! Get out of here! Do something, _anything_ different – just once!”

 

“Well _I_ think that you need to calm down and realise this is _really stupid and dangerous_!” With that, Roderich folded his arms and turned his back on Elli and Vash.

 

“I don’t know how you’re managing to be an asshole and a coward at the same time-”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Okay, that’s it!” yelled Vash, having said nothing since Elli and Roderich resumed their argument. “Both of you need to stop! All this pointless bickering isn’t going to achieve anything for anyone! You-” he whirled on Elli “-need to cool off for a while. And Roderich,” he paused, “well, she is sort of right.”

 

Vash felt horrible even before Roderich huffed and turned to adjust his glasses, hiding his face for a while. It took every ounce of concentration Vash had to fight the instinct to hurry in with a flustered apology and amended argument. _I have to think_ , he reminded himself. _This is important, and I have to say it properly_.

 

“You’re right too, of course,” said Vash, desperately trying to ignore Elli’s eyebrow raise. “You’re both really different people, Elli’s a “win-at-all-costs” kinda person who can run away in the middle of the night with no planning and you’re more of a “live-to-fight-another-day” sorta person who would never do that because, come on, it’s pretty dumb.”

 

Roderich gave a small smile at this while Elli simply rolled her eyes.

 

“You said I was right as well, you know,” she reminded him.

 

“Yeah, you are. Roderich… do you really want a life of nothing more than what your parents tell you to do?” Vash asked

 

“Of course not,” said Roderich quietly. “But… I guess I wouldn’t even know where to begin. With your parents you can do whatever you want so long as you’re back before dark and pretend to listen to their nagging,” he said to Elli. “But with mine I’m hardly ever allowed out.”

“See, there’s the first thing you can do!” said Elli. “Leave the house.”

 

“What?”

 

“Yeah,” said Vash. “You could come hang out with us for the day.”

 

“Well, could you at least help me think of a lie to tell my parents?” Roderich asked.

 

“No more of that hesitant crap, no lies, no excuses, just leave and they can think what they like!” cried Elli.

 

“Woah, woah,” said Vash, “we don’t want Roderich to get _murdered_. Why don’t you just go up to the door and ask if he can go to your house or something?”

 

“That’d work,” said Roderich. “I said I was going over to the Kastély the day I went to see the glowworms with you.”

 

Elli gave Vash a quick look, and then sighed. “Fine. We can do the exact same thing you’ve done before.”

 

“You gotta crawl before you walk,” said Vash.

 

“Well to be honest sometimes it feels like we’re not even born yet,” Elli replied, before stomping off.

 

Vash turned to Roderich and found his own concern mirrored in his neighbour’s eyes.

 

“I guess I’d better get back inside,” Roderich said eventually.

 

“Yeah, see you in a second.”

 

***

 

Elli managed to switch from violent rebellion to pigtails and shy smiles so quickly it was still astounding Vash as they wandered towards the park at the end of the cul-de-sac.

 

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” she explained, and the little seed of worry Vash held for her grew slightly.

 

“So…” said Roderich. “What exactly are we going to do today?”

 

Elli physically stopped in her tracks. “Damn. I knew there was something I forgot to think about.”

 

“The town’s hardly overflowing with opportunity…” said Vash. “Anything you’d like to do?” he asked Roderich.

 

Roderich shrugged. “Well I don’t know what the options are. What do you two do for fun?”

 

“Stay home,” Vash and Elli replied in unison.

 

“Oh.”

 

Elli laughed slightly. “And you wondered why I wanted to leave town,” she murmured to Vash.

 

“ _What_?” Vash could not recall ever seeing Roderich so distressed. “I thought you said you were just going to run away for the night!”

 

“I meant leave someday, not _now_ ,” said Elli, folding her arms. “I’m like twelve, even I’m not that rash.” Roderich visibly relaxed.

 

“You’re exactly twelve,” said Vash.

 

“Thank you for that vital confirmation, O fountain of infinite wisdom,” she replied.

 

“Isn’t the expression _fount_ of all wisdom?” asked Roderich.

 

“Yeah but a fount is just like an old-timey word for fountain, right?” asked Elli.

 

“I… I don’t know,” replied Vash.

 

“Well there’s also the fountain of youth, so it’d make sense for there to be a fountain of wisdom, too,” said Elli. “And probably also a fountain of kicking ass, fountain of looking hot, fountain of being super rich, fountain of not being an asshole…”

 

“Fountain of living somewhere interesting,” said Vash.

 

“Hell yeah,” replied Elli.

 

“Fountain of nice parents?” offered Roderich.

 

“Yeah, that one too, that’s a good one.” Elli uncrossed her arms to stretch. “Man, we have to go looking for all these fountains someday.”

 

“Someday when we’re not exactly twelve,” said Roderich.

 

“Yeah.”

 

They wandered further, always staying safely on the aristocratic side of the Edge, exploring the neighbourhood, nearly getting Roderich stuck permanently in Elli’s favourite climbing tree, and always their conversation flowing quietly, easily. By the afternoon Vash could not recall what they had spoken of or really where they had gone, but he was filled with a low, warm light. Even though Elli was still restless, Roderich still afraid, and he himself still felt rather useless, Roderich had given them such a sunny smile and firm promise to see them soon at the end of his driveway, Vash couldn’t help but feel that it’d all be okay. They’d make it okay. Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey what's up what's happening I totally didn't disappear for exactly seven months without warning just to show up again with just as little warning. I actually won the SMASH! fanfic competition last month and immediately felt very guilty about how I'd been treating The Edge... especially considering this chapter had been sitting open on my laptop since February. I hope you guys will forgive me, if there's anyone left who actually wants to read this fic. I don't even care if there's no one left, I really want to finish this at some point. I've given in and started planning for it, and I've even started work on chapter 19 already. Since my spring school holidays are just a week away I promise I will have something done by October. I swear on... something Octobery. I swear on a jack-o-lantern I'll have chapter 19 up by October. 
> 
> So yeah. Next time on The Edge: Ducks.


	19. Ducks

Vash was in his room the following Tuesday, chewing a pencil and trying to think of somewhere to take Roderich next, when said neighbour suddenly switched melodies. This tune sounded nothing like the usual sonatas of the old masters he’d been playing before; this was jumpier, shakier, but somehow bolder and utterly unique. Abandoning his thoughts to distraction, Vash headed outside to meet his neighbour at the fence.

 

“Hey,” he said as soon as the violin stopped, making Roderich jump slightly. “That’s new.”

 

“Oh it’s just… you don’t need to worry about it,” said Roderich, beginning to put his violin away.

 

“What? Come on, now I have to know what it is!”

 

“It’s just something silly I came up with,” said Roderich. “Really, I didn’t think anyone would be able to hear it.”

 

“Wait,” said Vash, suddenly a lot less jocular. “You wrote that?”

 

“…Yeah?”

 

“But it was amazing!” Vash cried. “I didn’t know you could write music, too!”

 

“I can’t, not really,” said Roderich, although he was beginning to smile. “I just wanted to try.”

 

“Well you should keep trying, because that sounded great,” said Vash, and Roderich smiled a little more.

 

“Here,” he said, pulling a note from his violin case. “Got something for you.”

 

“I didn’t realise we were still writing letters,” Vash joked.

 

“I didn’t know if you’d be here,” said Roderich. “Besides, I’m not wasting it now, not after all that expensive paper I used.” He paused awkwardly as Vash stared at the note. “See you later, then.”

 

Vash came very close to calling him back, half in jest, half because he really wanted to hear more of Roderich’s composition. But his confidence died in his throat, and he was left with only the note. On his way to his room he didn’t notice his father cheering on his football team in the living room, or his sister dunking flowers in her paint pots. He simply kept his eye on the note.

 

Roderich’s handwriting continued to fascinate him, with so much care put into each and every letter it was hard not to notice. But from what Vash knew now about his friend, the absolute care seemed less unique and endearing, and more concerning. What would Roderich be capable of if he wasn’t under such enormous pressure all the time? Would he even be the same person? For a second Vash was mentally lost, fancying the note was one of the letters of the early days of their correspondence and would contain Roderich’s deepest thoughts for the past few days. Upon actually reading it, he was both disappointed and delighted.

 

Who would Roderich be if his environment had been free of pressure? Whatever the answer, it sure wasn’t in the four painstakingly lettered lines Vash received. What was there, however, was an opportunity to find out more about the Roderich that _had_ grown up under pressure.

 

***

 

Vash had to admire Roderich’s scheduling skills – spending all day waiting for their meeting on the day of the glowworms had driven him near mad, whereas Roderich’s 10 o’clock meeting time was just late enough to build excitement, but early enough to prevent insanity. Upon starting their walk, Vash tried to say as much, but all that came out was a clumsy

 

“You’re good at time.”

 

Despite his obvious confusion, Roderich still managed a smile and thanks, prompting the beginnings of a blush on Vash’s face. _You blush when you’re embarrassed, when you’re confused, and now when someone’s nice to you as well?_ _Grow up already_ , he chided himself.

 

“You were serious about a picnic, then?” he asked, a few shades too loud to be anything but awkward, with a slight gesture towards the enormous basket Roderich carried.  

 

“Of course,” said Roderich. “It was an excuse for fancy sandwiches.”

 

Vash smiled softly. “Do you like cooking, then?” he asked.

 

“Oh no,” said Roderich. “I don’t really have the motivation to learn how, and why cook if you can’t produce something wonderful?”

 

“I… that makes sense, I guess,” said Vash.

 

“It’s mainly because I’m just extremely lazy,” continued Roderich. “And probably has something to do with the fact that my family has our own cooks.”

 

Vash gave him a slight look, prompting an indignant cry of “What?”

 

 “Sometimes I forget just how much of a walking stereotype your family is,” Vash responded.

 

“Lots of people have help around the house,” replied Roderich.

 

“Lots of people on your side of the Edge, that is.”

 

“Well,” said Roderich, “what about your family, then? Both your parents work, right? Don’t you have anyone helping you out?”

 

“Uh, _no_?” laughed Vash. “Wow, I swear sometimes you’re like a really rich baby.”

 

Catching sight of how Roderich’s cheeks were reddening, Vash quickly reigned in his growing smile.  

 

“Where exactly are we going?" he asked, looking at all the trees and unnecessary antique street lamps which characterised that leafy realm beyond the Edge.

 

"Somewhere I used to go all the time," replied Roderich. "When I actually was just a really rich baby."

 

Vash gave a tentative laugh, and said, "With a nanny I presume?"

 

"Of course," said Roderich, "my parents were far too busy thinking about which car would make them look better than their neighbours to raise a child."

 

Vash hesitated, wondering whether to continue the joke or to say something consoling, when Roderich continued.

 

"Not that I'd ever complain," he smiled. "My nanny was wonderful. I rather wish she still worked for us, although that'd be a bit odd, I guess. Nonetheless, she did have excellent taste in ponds."

 

With that, he led Vash through a break in an exceedingly tall hedge and into a surprisingly large park. It seemed they'd wandered farther than Vash had originally thought, for the park stretched out before them, and beyond it lay nothing but the fields and trees of the open countryside around their town. But the main feature of the park was not the lawn that rolled out to everywhere, or the overbearing and overladen trees, but the pond that sat in the middle of it all.

 

"How... How did we get here?" Vash asked, for there was no sign of any aristocrat houses anywhere. "

 

“This is pretty much the sole place in the world I can walk to without getting lost," said Roderich, utterly serious.

 

"But that doesn't even make any sense!" said Vash. "This is the most illogical route to the strangest location I've ever heard of." He thought for a second. "Maybe that's the reason you can get here. Maybe your sense of direction is just, like, the opposite of everyone else's."

 

Roderich stared at him momentarily. "...Actually, that would explain a lot."

 

"Maybe it's like a superpower," said Vash.

 

"Huh?"

 

"There's got to be some way of weaponising a backwards sense of direction, if only because it's so rare..."

 

Roderich stared as his neighbour stood, suddenly engrossed in thought, before finally interrupting.

 

"Perhaps for now we could just go down to the pond?" he suggested

 

"Oh sure that sounds like fun."

 

The pond was quite large, although not overly so, extremely still and very green. From what Vash could see, the water was completely empty of both plant and animal life and this, coupled with the overbearing stillness, made the pond seem almost otherworldly, a small slice of some alternate existence without time, life, or movement. And then a duck landed in front of him.

 

So surprised was he at this sudden arrival that a great squawk came from Vash without him even knowing, which prompted a few moments of blushing in shame as Roderich snickered at his outburst.

 

"I, uh, I didn't know there were ducks here," said Vash.

 

"Could've fooled me," said Roderich, eliciting a full pout from his neighbour.

 

But Vash didn't stay long in anger, for soon his crossed arms were being nudged with a large lump of bread.

 

"Would you like to feed them?"

 

The ducks, he soon found, were much more mild-mannered than their sudden arrival had suggested. Certainly they were more friendly than those geese he'd tried to feed in the city once; they'd ended up chasing him and Lili around the botanical garden. These were a decent sized community of ducks, not like the huge flocks that swarmed tourist parks, and although spring was already a few months ago some were still small and fuzzy enough to be recognised as the year's new ducklings. While a few of he birds were too skittish to get very close, many were confident enough to come eat straight out of the boys' hands.

 

"They're more friendly than I thought they'd be," said Vash as one drake near tore his thumbnail off in enthusiasm.

 

"I think they're actually quite used to humans," said Roderich. "Despite how few people know this park's here."

 

"Maybe they fly from park to park, taking bread from everyone they meet," said Vash, smiling.

 

"Like little, feathery conmen," laughed Roderich.

 

"The game's up, you crooks!" cried Vash, flicking a crumb rather viciously at one of the ducks, getting an indignant quack in reply.

 

Roderich burst into full laughter as Vash hurriedly retreated up the bank to escape his newfound foe, and then pulled the picnic basket close.

 

"Maybe we should enjoy our own ill-gotten bread gains," he suggested, still laughing.

 

"Did you go from manor to manor taking sandwiches from different cooks?" said Vash, not daring to return to the water's edge just yet.

 

"The terrible truth is out," Roderich joked, handing Vash a sandwich.

 

"You'll have to go to duck-jail then," said Vash. "This is a really good sandwich, by the way."

 

"Thanks! And I could definitely make it in duck-jail. These guys would protect me." To prove his point, he threw a small piece of his own sandwich into the pond, where it was promptly ignored by the ducks.

 

"See, they don't trust you because you called them 'little, feathery conmen'," said Vash.

 

"They know what they did," said Roderich, trying to instigate a staredown with one of the ducks which chose that moment to stick its head underwater.

 

"Do you ever wonder what animals are actually thinking about?" asked Roderich out of the blue.

 

"Huh?" asked Vash. "Not really, I guess."

 

"I do," said Roderich. "Like if they care about other members of their species or if they had trouble finding food... maybe what they think about us..."

 

"Us?"

 

"Just humans in general," said Roderich. "Do they even know what we are?"

 

"Do they know what anything is?" asked Vash, and there was a short lull in conversation. "Do you get many animals in your garden?" he asked rather abruptly.

 

"Not many," said Roderich. "But we do have some very adventurous squirrels. They like to sit on the windowsill and stare at me during tutoring."

 

"You mean _you_ like to stare at them during tutoring."

 

"There are no words in any language on the planet that could properly describe how boring tutoring is," said Roderich, sighing. "Could you really blame me for staring at squirrels all day?"

 

He threw another piece of sandwich into the water and the two boys watched as a couple of the ducks began fighting over it.

 

"After my nanny left," said Roderich, "my parents sometimes took me down here. I used to pester them so bad they couldn't help but say yes." For a moment he smiled at the memory, but then sighed. "They never liked to stay long, though. And they didn't like me getting to close to the water either… You know, the only reason they let go out today was because I said I wanted to come here by myself. They seemed quite relieved.”

 

“That’s still a good thing, though,” said Vash. “You got to leave without lying, and maybe soon they’ll start giving you more freedom.”

 

Roderich made a small humming noise and threw some more sandwich to the ducks. "I hope I'm not painting a bad picture of my parents," he said. "I have nothing against them, I promise. I'd say they were lovely people but really," he paused, a slight wrinkle appearing in his brow, "I know nothing about them."

 

There was silence but for the splashing of the ducks for a short while, until a small smile began blooming on Roderich’s face.

 

“Y’know, there was another reason I loved coming down here,” he said, pulling the picnic basket close and starting to dig through it.

 

“What-?” Vash asked as a seemingly endless parade of junk was pulled out, at one point even being made to hold a bottle of orange juice.

 

“Here,” said Roderich, pulling out a huge ream of coloured paper.

 

Vash could only stare, confused, as Roderich handed him a sheet.

 

“Waxed paper,” explained his neighbour.

 

"I can see that," said Vash. "But why do you have so much of it in your picnic basket?"

 

"I'll show you!" announced Roderich, and began hurriedly folding the piece of paper into itself.

 

Within seconds he was holding a small purple boat, which he then placed on the water. It bobbed slowly in the green water, becoming slick but not soggy and attracting the attention of all the ducks.

 

"Hey, wow," said Vash. "That was really cool."

 

"I can show you how to make them if you like," said Roderich, smiling.

 

"Yeah," said Vash, returning the smile. "I would like."

 

They were interrupted by a very loud honking noise and, upon turning their eyes to the pond, discovered one of the ducks had tried to eat the paper boat.

 

"Hey!" cried Vash, flapping his arms. "Leave that alone!"

 

"It could kill you or something, maybe," said Roderich.

The duck seemed to catch on and soon left Roderich's boat alone, but it was already quite dented and torn.

 

"Aw," said Roderich. "I liked that one."

 

"I'll make you a new one," said Vash quickly, picking up his sheet. "If, uh, you'll teach me, that is."

 

Under Roderich's guidance Vash managed to produce a boat slightly less malformed than the one that had been halfway down a duck's gullet. It seems the birds had learnt their lesson, for they stayed far away as Vash placed it on the water.

 

"They don't like it," said Vash, glaring at the ducks.

 

"They're ducks, Vash," said Roderich. "Their idea of good taste is worms. Oh, speaking of which, I have gummy worms if you want some."

 

Vash laughed and took a few worms from the packet.

 

"Besides, making boats takes a lot of practice," continued Roderich.

 

"Good," said Vash, already starting work on another paper boat. "That means I can come back again soon."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Y'know at this point I'm just happy there is a single day left of October, and I got this out before the absolute, technical, last minute.
> 
> So yeah, ducks. Also paper boats and a secret park. I've noticed I like writing about weird parks, they show up in a lot of my short stories, so there might be another one in this fic at some point. I dunno, not my fault I grew up down the road from a park which I'm pretty sure was a gateway into another dimension. 
> 
> There is good news about it being the end of October though! That news is, it's November soon! And November means NaNoWriMo! And since I couldn't really think of any original project I wanted to do this year, so I'm going to be doing ... This thing! Yes, The Edge is getting the NaNo treatment, which for me is basically a lot of screaming + typos + nowhere near as many words as I would like, but that's still a bit more productive than my usual routine of staring at the screen sometimes. 
> 
> My NaNo page is here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/commander-freddy so come say hi, see how I'm doing, poke me with a big stick to stop me from being slack, all that jazz.
> 
> Next update I guess is...? Probably not within the bounds of November, at that point it'll just be a huge unedited mess that causes blindness if looked at directly. My exams are in the first week of December so...? Before Christmas? 
> 
> Ouch. (Sorry!)


End file.
